“I wish there could be live streaming when you cut his head off,” read an Arabic-language celebratory Tweet written by a devout Muslim in reaction to a Saudi man's being sentenced to death on apostasy charges.
Ahmad al-Shamri, a Saudi Arabian man in his 20's, lost two appeals after his 2014 arrest on blasphemy charges, according to the Independent. He came under scrutiny after allegedly uploading videos to social media in which he renounced Islam and its founder.
Saudi law provides for heavy sentencing in blasphemy cases including extended imprisonment, hard labor, and lashings, but a 2014 royal decree equated atheism with terrorism, laying the basis for still harsher punishments.
Shamri's legal defense entered an insanity plea, also claiming that drugs and alcohol impaired his judgement but last week a Supreme Court rejected his second appeal.
Despite the use of capital punishment against those who renounce Islam, or perhaps because of it, Saudi Arabia has sat on the United Nations Human Rights Council since 2015.