Saudi Arabian police have killed at least one person, and injured a child during a fire fight in the eastern town of Awamiya, after a protest in the hometown of a prominent Shia cleric executed at the weekend, according to reports.
Details of exactly what happened aren’t hugely clear because of the notorious lack of information that comes out of Saudi Arabia, but Saudi police say that the incident occurred after “heavy equipment” was stolen in Awamiya, the hometown of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the cleric executed on Saturday.
Police said that security forces fired on protestors after being subject to “heavy gunfire,” and accused protestors of committing a “sinful terrorist action”. Police fire led to the death of Ali Imran al-Dawood, and to eight-year-old Mohammed Jaafra Althifa being injured. The child is in a stable condition in hospital.
The firefight was the latest in a series of clashes, sparked by al-Nimr’s execution, that have rocked the country, and have even led to a severing of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia flared after al-Nimr, along with three other Shia activists were executed. Late on Saturday night Iranian protestors set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
The regime in Saudi Arabia has been strongly criticized by human rights organizations.
Saudi Arabia has been compared to Daesh in long time now, especially for their support of terrorist organizations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Hashtags #SueMeSaudi and #SaudiArabiaIsISIS has now many hits every minute, and many want to mark their opposition and to show their distance to the brutal dictator regime in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia practice Wahhabism ideology, a strictly fundamentalist orientation within Sunni Islam, which in practice is the state religion in the country. It is also ideology direction that has inspired al-Qaida and DAESH.
