Dark times for relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. You may have seen the news that the Sunni-dominated kingdom led by the House of Saud felt it necessary to execute Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, a dissident Shia cleric who was close to Iran’s mullahs, on January 2. And then, of course, all hell broke loose.
Sheikh Nimr played a leading (yet allegedly peaceful) part in the 2011-12 anti-government protests in Saudi’s Shia-majority eastern provinces. But the kingdom had accused the Sheikh of taking up arms against the state and inviting foreign meddling into its internal affairs. Iran’s Shia-shaped Islamic Republic was profoundly aggrieved at the Sheikh’s execution: an angry mob incited by regime hardliners duly torched the Saudi embassy in Tehran and a consulate in Mashhad.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani took to Twitter to denounce the execution of Al-Nimr: “I hereby condemn Sheikh Nimr’s execution and send my condolences to his family and the Muslim world,” he said. “This act violates human rights and Islamic values.” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, chipped in when he prophesied “divine revenge” on Saudi Arabia and declared Sheikh Nimr a “martyr” of Shia Islam.
Dozens of analysts have jumped into the story to label the crisis either as the latest episode in a 1400-year history of conflict between Sunnis and Shias or simply a new expression of Iran-Saudi geopolitical rivalry. But IranWire is here to settle everything and restore peace to the region – because the two religiously fundamentalist states have far more in common than they care to admit.
The death penalty. Iran and Saudi Arabia both just love the death penalty.
Iran loves it more than Saudi Arabia, it’s true, and by capita perhaps more than any other country on Earth. But whereas most of Iran’s hundreds of annual executions are for drugs offences, and are usually carried out with dull and utilitarian hangings from cranes, Saudi Arabia’s hundred-odd yearly death sentences include executions for eye-popping crimes like “sorcery” and opt for beheadings by curved sword. The old ways are still the best ways.
Let’s look to the numbers. The first half of 2015 was a busy year in Iran. Amnesty International reported that 694 people were executed in those six months alone, representing a jump on the 734 who were put to death in all 12 months of the previous year. Amnesty also said that “at least” 157 people were executed in 2015 in Saudi Arabia. But Sheikh Nimr was one of 47 people who were executed for alleged terrorism crimes on January 2 in the kingdom, or just one day; so the Saudis can claim to have started 2016 with a real sense of purpose. Rivalling Iran’s count can’t be far behind.
Many or most of these executions were carried out in public – whether this is before witnesses inside a prison or actually in a public square or other public space. Iran and Saudi Arabia both carry out some of their death penalties before throngs of people that can include children alongside the adults. Iran even troops boys and girls from their classrooms to the gallows for an extracurricular treat.
Saudi Arabia decides its capital cases according to a strict interpretation of sharia law. The hudud or fixed Koranic punishments are for crimes such as apostasy, adultery and sodomy; “crimes” that are strictly religious in nature. Executions for qisas or “eye for an eye” retaliatory punishments are for crimes such as murder – and these can always be commuted if the family of a murder victim decides to forgive the accused. The final category are tazir crimes, which capture crimes not specifically mentioned in the Koran or the Hadiths, such as drug trafficking. The more exotic crimes found within these categories include sorcery and witchcraft as well as terrorism, sedition and even atheism.
Iran uses a similarly strict sharia system for deciding capital crimes. And while the same range of apostasy, sodomy and murder naturally call for the ultimate deterrent, 74% of executions in 2015 were for drug-related offences. The majority of other capital punishments in 2015 were for crimes such as aggravated rape, deadly robbery or kidnapping, large-scale drugs crimes, and of course murder.
Iran and Saudi Arabia also share similar attitudes to the death penalty for minors. Why shouldn’t children enjoy the same treatment as adults? We’ve all seen Home Alone: we know how unfair it is for grown-ups to treat kids as though they’re defenceless and vulnerable creatures in need of the sheltering care of their elders. Nothing shapes their character as surely as the hangman’s noose. The Iranian photographer Sadegh Souri recently documented portraits of young women on death row waiting to turn 18 so that their executions can be carried out. Happy birthday girls!
We would be remiss at IranWire if we didn’t point out that the sharia law standards for proving many of the crimes that warrant capital punishment – from apostasy to adultery – can be taxing. But there is also a measure of inequality in these standards. The testimony of women in Iran, for instance, carries half the weight as that of men. And that’s before we even worry about who is responsible for handing down the death penalty in both Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The lack of judicial impartiality in both countries is another shared trait. Iran and Saudi Arabia are starting to look so much alike that it hardly matters who’s Shia and who’s Sunni – or indeed who is the greater source of instability in the Middle East. Amnesty International has said that Iran’s courts are “completely lacking in independence” and the death penalty is handed down for “vaguely worded” or “overly broad” offences without any convincing appeals process. Detainees are frequently denied due process and proper access to lawyers. The same is true in Saudi Arabia. And the kingdom has a special court that equates peaceful criticism of the government with terrorism – such was how Sheikh Nimr and 47 others met their end.
All this time, we’ve been looking in the wrong places for peace in the Middle East. The region’s greatest rivalry – between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Shias and Sunnis who share so much while thinking they’re so different – is in fact its greatest bromance waiting to happen. Everyone knows that a good relationship is forged in the crisis of trial and when facing a shared threat. What better enemy for Iran and Saudi Arabia than their own peoples? Off with their heads!
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