Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether on his recent visit to Saudi Arabia he raised the case of Mustafa Hashem al-Darwish who is facing the death penalty for protest-related crimes he is alleged to have committed as a child in that country.

The United Kingdom strongly opposes the death penalty in all countries and in all circumstances, as a matter of principle. The Saudi authorities are well aware of the UK's opposition to the use of the death penalty. We reiterated our opposition to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia in a joint statement at the UN Human Rights Council on 15 September 2020.

We regularly raise our concerns about the use of the death penalty, including individual cases with the Saudi authorities and we will continue to do so. The Foreign Secretary raised human rights issues, notably around justice reform and freedom of media expression during his visit of 7 June 2021. I raised the use of the death penalty with the Saudi Human Rights Commission during my visit to Saudi Arabia on 24 May.