In practice, the death penalty has also been used to sentence political protestors. Ali al-Nimr and Dawoud al-Marhoon were both arrested at the age of 17 in 2012 during Arab Spring protests in the Eastern Province, tortured, forced to confess, and sentenced to decapitation in 2014 and 2015. Sheikh Nimr al Nimr, an independent sheikh critical of the Saudi government and popular among youth and Ali al Nimr's uncle, was also arrested in 2012 and sentenced to death by the Specialized Criminal Court in 2014 for his role in encouraging political protests. Nimr al Nimr was executed on 2 January 2016, along with 46 other people, mostly terrorists arrested in the 2000s. From the available sources about Nimr al-Nimr case it seems that Saudi officials use the term "terrorism" as cover label for "thought crimes" which would be in other countries considered as normal work of an opposition politician.