On January 2, 2016, Saudi Arabia announced the execution of the Shiite religious leader Shaykh Nimr al-Nimr (and 46 other prisoners). In the region, this was the climax of escalating tension between Saudi Arabia, which perceives itself as defending the world’s Sunni Muslims, and Iran, which claims the mantle of Shiite leadership.

In Saudi Arabia, the execution was a stark warning to the country’s embattled Shiite minority. And for King Salman bin Abd al-Aziz, only a year in office, and his young son and Minister of Defense, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, this was a further demonstration of a developing muscular and assertive foreign policy.

About Shaykh Nimr al-Nimr

Shaykh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr was the star of the “Arab Spring” demonstrations, which broke out in the kingdom’s Eastern Province in 2011-2012. Relations with the Shiite minority are an open sore in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. Since the 18^tth  century, these interactions have been marked by cycles of persecution, oppression, demonstrations, violence and terrorism, and sometimes even dialogue. But Saudi Arabia is still at its core a Wahhabi state, and traditionally Wahhabism abhors Shi’ism as a perversion of the true Islamic creed.

The Saudis had hoped to give the Arab Spring a miss. Its Sunni majority never took to the streets, limiting its remonstrations to social media. But its politically active Shiite minority demonstrated forcefully, sometimes even violently, particularly in solidarity with Bahrain’s Shiites after the Saudis joined their fellow Sunni rulers in putting down the Shiite rebellion in Manama in March 2011. The Saudis pulled no punches in suppressing the Shiite protests at home, resulting in many casualties, on both sides.

Read the article in full at BESA.