Saudi Arabia executes 47 people on terror

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, criticising Saudi Arabia for the second straight day over Nimr’s execution, said politicians in the Sunni kingdom would face divine retribution for his death.

Iranian protestors ransacked the Saudi Embassy early Sunday morning, reacting with fury to Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr earlier this week.

Saudi Arabia executed 47 prisoners convicted of terrorism charges on Saturday, including a Shiite cleric who was a central figure in 2011 Arab Spring-inspired protests in the kingdom.

The BBC reported that one of the 47 people executed by Saudi Arabia was convicted of the 2004 shooting that killed one of its cameramen and wounded a correspondent.

As the protest outside the Saudi embassy grew, demonstrators were able to break into the building, destroying furniture and setting the place on fire.

The U.S. State Department released a statement, raising questions about the county’s legal process and expressing concern the execution could exacerbate “sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced”.

“It is clear that this barren and irresponsible policy will have consequences for those endorsing it, and the Saudi government will have to pay for pursuing this policy”, said Hossein Jaberi-Ansari, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry. Security forces in other Shia-populated areas are also said to be on high alert.

In a press statement read out on state TV on Saturday, the Saudi ministry listed the names of all those it said were already convicted on charges of terrorism.

The journalist has published images and video footage of what appeared to be the Saudi embassy in the Iranian capital of Tehran engulfed in flames.

The police were trying to drive some of the protesters out of the embassy after they broke into the compound, semi-official ISNA news agency reported.

Also on Sunday, Khamenei’s Twitter account said: “Doubtlessly, unfairly spilled blood of oppressed martyr (hashtag)SheikhNimr will affect rapidly & Divine revenge will seize Saudi politicians”. Protests against Saudi Arabia’s actions erupted in Yemen, Pakistan, Bahrain, and Iraq.

The group said the case against him was part of a systematic effort by the majority Sunni government to crush dissent among the nation’s Shiite Muslim minority. Cleric Nimr al-Nimr “was neither encouraging people to armed protests, nor plotting secretly, all he did was to openly criticize”.

In Iran, a Shi’ite theocracy and rival to Saudi Arabia, state media channels carried non-stop coverage of clerics and secular officials eulogising Nimr and predicting the downfall of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni ruling family.