The arrest of Mr. Walid Lamri is indisputably intended to repress this peaceful activity; the authorities are unwilling to allow human rights activists the slightest room for maneuver.  Other Alkarama members and activists had been arrested or held in custody last year in Saudi Arabia.

Walid Lamri has never been brought before a judge to be legally found guilty, and has never been tried.  He has thus not had access to any means of contesting the legality of his being placed in detention.

He has not been permitted to get a lawyer, and his family has never been allowed to visit him; they have not had any news of him except by telephone more than a month after his arrest.

Alkarama fears that Walid Lamri is suffering maltreatment after at the end of the month he announced his intention to start a hunger strike.  Since this date, his family has had no further news of him and is particularly worried.

Alkarama had already launched an urgent appeal on 30 April 2007 and asked for the intervention of the Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders.

Alkarama for Human Rights calls on the President of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to undertake urgent action with the Saudi governmental authorities to put an end to the persecutions that he is suffering as a human rights defender and to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Saudi Arabia, let it be noted, is a member of the Human Rights Council.