Thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in Tehran again to express their outrage at the execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr by the Saudi regime.

For the third consecutive day, angry protesters, including university students and clerics, gathered in a key square on Monday to condemn the killing.

They carried banners in support of the prominent Shia leader and chanted slogans against the Al Saud regime and its allies, the United States and Israel.

Saudi Arabia announced the execution of Sheikh Nimr and 46 others on Saturday despite international calls for the release of the opposition cleric and other jailed political activists in the kingdom.

The cleric's relatives say Riyadh refused to hand over Sheikh Nimr’s body to his family and buried him at an undisclosed location.



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="555"] An Iranian woman attends an anti-Saudi demonstration in Tehran on January 4, 2016. (IRNA)[/caption]

Sheikh Nimr’s execution has drawn strong condemnations from governments and human rights groups around the world. Besides Iran, several countries have been the scene of large anti-Saudi demonstrations over the past three days.

On Monday, thousands of Iraqis flooded the streets of several cities, including the capital Baghdad, Basra, Karbala and Najaf, to vent their anger at the Saudi crime.

An outspoken critic of Riyadh’s policies, Nimr had been arrested by the Saudi police in the Qatif region of the kingdom’s Shia-dominated Eastern Province in 2012. He was charged with instigating unrest and undermining the kingdom’s security.

In 2014, a Saudi court sentenced the clergyman to death, a ruling that was upheld last March by the Saudi court of appeals.

By Press TV