Riyadh: A Saudi court in the eastern Qatif district sentenced on Wednesday three men to up to eight months in jail and 100 lashes each for participating in violence during Shiite protests, activists said.
One man was sentenced to eight months, while two others received seven-month jail terms “for taking part in riots last year,” an activist said on condition of anonymity.
The court began this summer the trials of several Shiites arrested over protests in Qatif, in the Eastern Province, and has already sentenced some to jail, the activist said.
The lists of charges include “taking part in mob rallies and vandalising public and private properties, as well as possessing illegal guns,” the activist added.
Confrontations had intensified over the past months between police and protesters from the kingdom’s Shiites — estimated at about two million and mostly concentrated in the Eastern Province.
A policeman and an armed protester were killed in clashes in early August, as a security patrol came under heavy gunfire from four armed rioters on motorbike in Qatif, the interior ministry said.
Two Shiite protesters were killed in July, triggering attacks on government buildings in Qatif.
In May, Amnesty International said seven people had been killed and a number of others injured in clashes between the authorities and protesters in the region since November.
Qatif witnessed a spate of demonstrations after an outbreak of violence between Shiite pilgrims and religious police in the Madinah in February 2011.
Rights groups say more than 600 people from Qatif have been arrested since spring 2011, but most of them were released.
