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Home » Press Releases » KSA - News » Saudi Arabia: Arbitrary detention and ongoing hunger strike of Dr. Said bin Mubarak bin Zair
Dr. Said bin Zair, 56 years old, is a professor of information science at the University of Riyadh. He is a well-known personality in the country for the public positions he holds on the need for institutional reforms in the country as well as for his support for the Reform Movement.
Two months earlier, his other son Saad bin Zair, a lawyer and human rights defender, had been arrested and is still detained in secret without charge. Their family thinks that these two arrests may be linked because of his son’s membership to the Reform Movement, a non-political group of Saudi intellectuals who are publicly and peacefully advocating the need for institutional reforms in the Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Bin Zair had been imprisoned many times without trial and without charge. He has experienced particularly painful conditions of secret detention over more than 10 years, during which he never had access to a lawyer or to family visits.
He was notably detained for more than 8 years, from 5 March 1995 to 24 March 2003, then arrested for the second time on 20 April 2004 for giving the Al Jazeera television channel an interview.
On 19 September 2004, he was sentenced to 5 years of criminal imprisonment, following an unfair trial during which none of his fundamental rights were respected. He never had access to the prosecution case nor had the aid of a lawyer to help him on the day of his trial.
These repeated detentions have had serious consequences for his physical health, and Dr. bin Zair currently suffers from chronic illnesses. His family, having learned that, despite his state of health, he had started a hunger strike, expresses justified fears for his life.
It is undeniable that the latest arrest of Dr. bin Zair follows in the footsteps of the previous ones, and that it is solely motivated by the Ministry of the Interior’s desire to silence every free dissident voice in the country, and every public personage who does not pledge allegiance to the government’s official policies.
His current detention in secret without any legal proceedings is incontestably arbitrary and contrary to the relevant international norms expounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Saudi Arabia has not ratified the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights. It is a member of the Human Rights Council (2006-2009.)
Alkarama for Human Rights calls for urgent action to be taken with regards to the Saudi government in light of the current situation of Dr. Said bin Zair, the probable ill-treatment he is undergoing, and the risks that he faces. The organisation calls for his immediate liberation and for an end to the persecution he keeps facing for his free expression of his political opinions.