Bahrain police use water cannons, birdshot at Nimr al-Nimr execution protest

Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric indicates the kingdom is “using execution to settle political scores”, rights group Amnesty International said on Saturday.

Other leading Shiite clerics in Iraq have reacted with outrage to the execution on Saturday by the Saudi authorities of Nimr and other Shiite activists. Crowds also set fire to the Saudi consulate in the Iranian city of Mashhad.

Saudi Arabia has come under fire from several governments and rights groups Saturday over the simultaneous execution of 47 people, including a prominent Shiite cleric, over security grounds and terror charges.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said that the Saudi kingdom supported terrorists but executed critics within the country, and added that it would “pay a high price” for this.

The government had accused Sheikh Nimr of “seeking “foreign meddling” in Saudi Arabia, “disobeying” its rulers and taking up arms against the security forces”.

In 2014, a Saudi court sentenced the clergyman to death, provoking widespread global condemnations.

Shortly afterwards, Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling for calm and urging protesters to respect the diplomatic premises, the Entekhab news website reported.

Moqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shi’ite leader, called for “angry demonstrations” on Monday in Najaf and at the gate of Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone where the Saudi embassy is located.

Iran and Saudi Arabia summoned each other’s envoys for consultations, and Saudi allies Egypt and the United Arab Emirates summoned Iranian officials in their capitals over the Tehran embassy assault. Iran has supported Assad’s regime, allying with Russian Federation to keep his government in power.

And the American State Department said the execution “risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced”. The Guard said in a statement that Saudi Arabia’s “medieval act of savagery” in putting al-Nimir death will lead to the “downfall” of the monarchy. He was an outspoken government critic and a key leader of Shiite protests in eastern Saudi Arabia in 2011. “I am confident that if the escalation happens, it is only Iran and Syria who will remain among the perpetrators, which is usually the case with Americans in their sustainable practice to divide any situation into concealing those who are loyal to them and demonizing those who are not loyal to them”, – Kosachev said.

Coinciding with the rise in executions is the number of people executed for non-lethal offences that judges have wide discretion to rule on, particularly drug-related crimes.