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Saudi Arabia presenting twisted image of protests: Analyst

Monday, 04 January 2016 6:12 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 04 January 2016 9:33 AM ]

Saudi women hold portraits of prominent cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr during a protest against his execution by Saudi authorities, in the eastern coastal city of Qatif, January 2, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has interviewed Raza Kazim, with the Islamic Human Rights Commission, and Jihad Mouracadeh, a political analyst, to discuss the execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia.

Kazim rejects the allegations that Saudi Arabia expressed against Sheikh Nimr, saying that the sectarian narrative raised by the Riyadh government is unfounded.

The Saudi regime, he says, wished to take advantage of “the fact that people from the Sunni Wahhabi community had protested” in Saudi Arabia, adding that Riyadh wanted to change the narrative into a Shia-Sunni strife instead.

The Al Saud regime needs to resort to the sectarian narrative of protests inside Saudi Arabia and also promote a sectarian narrative of the unrest in the Middle East to cover up its defeats in all fronts from domestic politics to its regional aggressive policies, including in the war on Yemen, he says.

Mouracadeh, for his part, claims Sheikh Nimr was inciting people against the Al Saud ruling family.

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