Executed Saudi preacher gave voice to anger of Shiite minority

When Saudi Arabian security forces arrested Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in July 2012, it sparked days of protests where three people died, a sign of the regard many of the kingdom’s minority sect held for the preacher, who was executed on Saturday.

Nimr, wiry and greybearded, had been the most vocal critic of the kingdom’s ruling al-Saud clan for years before mass protests erupted among Saudi Shiites during the 2011 Arab uprisings, and had called for demonstrations.

The kingdom’s Shiites have long complained of entrenched discrimination – denied by Riyadh – on the part of the government and majority of Saudi Arabia, which follow the strict Wahhabi Sunni school that regards Shiites as heretical.

READ MORE: Saudi Arabia executes 47 in a single day for terrorism, including top Shi’ite cleric

Most of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite clergy, and local community leaders, struck a bargain with the al-Sauds in 1993 after years in exile to address their complaints. The limited progress they made pushed some of the sect towards more radical voices.

Nimr emerged as the most prominent of those after sermons in his home village of Awamiya, an impoverished part of Qatif known as a redoubt of opposition to the al-Saud, in which he called for the formation of a “righteous front” to protect Shiites.

Nimr’s supporters, including many younger Saudi Shiites, have always maintained that the preacher was careful to avoid calling for violence, and highlighted his vocal criticism of the oppression of Sunni Muslims in Syria.