Alkarama and the Arab Commission on Human Rights had sent March 21, 2008 a communication to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on Torture to ask them to intervene in the case of Mahmoud Hozbor.

Mr. Mahmoud Badr HOZBOR, (محمود بدر هزبر) was born in 1972 in Syria, the country of his nationality, in Al Ghoutah Al Sharquia, Village Dir Al Asafir in Damascus. Until his arrest on July 3, 2003, he worked as salesman in the Al Saqa'abi Company  in Saudi Arabia, in the city of Sekaka (Al Jouf)

He was arrested by the General Intelligence (Al Mabahit Al Aama) on 03 July 2003 while he was with his family and driving towards his country during his holiday.

For more than six months, his family was unable to obtain any information about his whereabouts despite numerous inquiries with the Saudi authorities, in particular the Ministry of Interior. It was through families of other prisoners that the family lerned that he was detained in the Al Hayr prison near Riyadh.

His relatives have taken initial steps to visit him and were able to finally see him in prison in January, 2004 after obtaining permission for a single visit.

It was during that one visit to the prison of Al Hayr that his wife was told that he had been subjected to severe torture and particularly inhuman and degrading treatment and that he had been held a total isolation for several months.

His family has also learned the circumstances under which he appeared in an unfair trial as a result of which he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for an alleged case of non denunciation of persons sought by the intelligence services.

Some time after the notification of the conviction and the visit by his family, he was transferred - according to information received by his wife and by other families of detainees - to the detention centre of the Intelligence Services of Al-Jouf.

Despite their efforts, his family was unable to obtain official confirmation of this information and has not been allowed to visit him.

At the end of the prison sentence, on 03 January 2005, Mr. Hozbor has not been released.

Mr. Hozbor is deprived of his liberty for an arbitrary fashion since his arrest in July 2003 since more than four years which constitutes a serious violation of his most basic rights. Legal norms internal as well as international standards enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have undoubtedly been violated.

For more details see the Alakarama Communique of 22 March 2008 .