Abdullah Al-Nuaimy

The arbitrary detention of former Guantanamo detainees in Saudi Arabia has now reached international notoriety - opposition campaigns linked to these types of arbitrary detentions and disappearances are growing across the Gulf region. The reality is that the Saudi's current detention program is simply an extension of their counterterrorism policy set in motion in 2003 and instigated by the US. Take for example the recent case of former Guantanamo Bay prison detainee and founder of the support "Committee for Guantanamo detainees", Abdullah Al-Nuaimy. A Bahraini national, he is currently detained in Dammam Prison following his arrest and disappearance from the King Fahd Causeway, while crossing the Bahrain-Saudi border in late October 2008. Despite having been released from Guantanamo in November 2005, he is now detained in his neighboring country due to his work in trying to release those still detained in Guantanamo.

Following yesterday's publication of photographs depicting the injuries of a torture victim inside al-Hayr prison - one of the prison's detainees, Khaled Suleyman Al-Omeir, is suspected by prison authorities of having leaked the snapshots from the prison and is now being detained in solitary confinement.

Abdullah Majed Sayah al-Nuaimy, who was originally disappeared by Saudi authorities on 29 October 2008, has reappeared in a Saudi prison, according to sources. Alkarama received this update today, and now knows that he was in fact missing for a total six month after which news leaked at the end of April 2009 that he was being detained in Dammam Prison, Dammam, on the east coast of Saudi Arabia.

The death of Salem Aboud Bahaneef on 29 September 2009 comes as another stark reminder of the inhumane conditions in Saudi prisons. Following the confirmation of his death, Alkarama has called upon the Saudi Arabian government to improve prison conditions, to ensure detainees are treated decently.