Alkarama had alerted on 14 January 2008 Ms. Louise Arbour, High Commissioner for Human Rights, asking her to intervene with the Saudi authorities and had as well seized on 29 February 2008 the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention .

Ahmad Fouad Al Farhan is director of a communications company and organizer of a blog very popular in Saudi Arabia (http://www.alfarhan.org/). His arrest was certainly related to the fact that he had expressed criticism in his blog about arbitrary arrests and detentions of persons from the Saudi reform movement, on the pretext of the fight against terrorism.

Fouad Al Farhan had been informed two weeks earlier of his likely arrest following his articles on political prisoners in Saudi Arabia. He was asked to sign a declaration of a public apology, which he refused to do.

It was only until 1 January 2008, that the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior, General Mansur al-Turki acknowledged his arrest. After being held incommunicado until January 05, 2008, the family of Mr. Al Farhan was told he was in Dahbane prison in Jeddah. Initially his stepfather was allowed to visit him, but his family still remained without news of him.

Alkarama has no information at this time on the treatment he has suffered during his detention.