Brussels, 25/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 November, a spokesperson for High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said that the death sentence handed down to Palestinian-origin poet Ashraf Fayad for atheism and apostasy was “unacceptable”.
“We hope that in the appeal case, Mr Fayad's sentence will be reviewed and will allow for his release”, Mogherini's spokesperson told EUROPE, adding that in the EU's contact with its Saudi “partners”, the EU would continue to emphasise that “decisive progress is needed in the area of freedom of religion and belief”. Mogherini's spokesperson stated that the EU had repeatedly called on the Saudi authorities to suspend the death sentence as “it represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity”.
Ashraf Fayad had been sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes in the court of first instance in 2014, following an accusation of speaking against God and being blasphemous in an anthology of poems written ten years earlier.
“We call on all states to repeal legal provisions penalising or discriminating against individuals for leaving or changing their religion or belief or for inducing others to change a religion or belief especially when cases of apostasy, heterodoxy, or conversion are punishable by the death penalty or by long prison sentences”, said Mogherini's spokesperson.
According to Amnesty International, 151 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since the start of 2015 - a record since 1995 (see EUROPE 11433). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)