31 July 2007

Saudi government releases Dr. Abdallah Al Hamed and his brother

Alkarama for Human Rights, 25 July 2007

As of Monday 24/07/2007, the Saudi authorities have released our client Dr. Abdallah Al Hamed and his brother Isa Al Hamed.  Alkarama had taken up their issue during the wave of arrests of 16/03/2004 which affected him and some other symbols of political, cultural, and ideological reform in the Kingdom.

Dr. Abdallah Al Hamed was born on 12/07/1950, and is a former teacher of comparative literature at the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University.  He was taken away from his work and detained for a while due to his co-founding in 1993 in Riyadh of the League for the Defence of Citizen’s Legal Rights.  Prof. Al Hamed is an Islamist calling for freedom, democracy, and human rights who has researched and made media appearances on judicial independence and constitutional monarchy.  Among his publications are So that we do not turn Islam into customs - The Search for my Blue Eye – A Servant’s Cry – The Feelings of an Oppressed Student – Hasan al-Basri and Hajjaj.

The General Intelligence Service had detained him along with his brother Sabah on 19/07/2007 in a wave of arrests including, for the first time in five years, ladies: Ms. Rima Al Juraysh, wife of the detainee Muhammad al-Hamili, Ms. Manal al-Amrini, wife of the detainee Khalid al-Saawi, Durriya al-Amrini, wife of the detainee Adil al-Khalidi, as well as Ashwaq and Farah Al Fuhayd, the two sisters of the detainee Hani Al Fuhayd.  The Saudi authorities had later released the detained women one by one.  The General Intelligence Service had made these arrests following a sit-in by 15 women and 7 children protesting the detention of their relatives without trial on the previous Monday; the sit-in was broken up that evening by the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue (the so-called religious police.)

While Alkarama considers this release a positive step by the Saudi authorities, it notes that the detention of major civilian and religious personalities in the Kingdom continues without any legal proceedings or trial, under the guise of drying up the sources of terrorist funding or other such unfounded accusations.  Such cases include, for example: Saud Mukhtar al-Hashimi, Abdurrahman ash-Shumayri, Sulayman ar-Rashudi, Isam Hasan Basrawi, Abdulaziz al-Khariji, Musa al-Qarni, ash-Sharif Sayfuddin Faysal Al Sharif, and Muhammad Hasan al-Qurashi, Khalid as-Saawi, Muhammad al-Hamili and Hani Al Fuhayd.

On the occasion of Prof. Abdallah Al Hamed’s release, Alkarama again calls on the Saudi authorities immediately to release the political detainees, and strongly condemns the fact that a large number of the detainees continue to be jailed without trial under accusations of “terrorism”.

Syria - HR Instruments

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

ICCPR: Accessed on 21.04.1969
Optional Protocol: No

State report: Overdue since 01.08.2009 (4th)
Last concluding observations: 09.08.2005

Convention against Torture (CAT)

CAT: Accessed on 19.08.2004
Optional Protocol: No
Art. 20 (Confidential inquiry): No
Art. 22 (Individual communications): No

State report: Overdue since 14.05.2014 (2nd)
Last concluding observations: 29.06.2012

International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED)

No

Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

Last review: 10.2011 (1st cycle)
Next review: 2016 (2nd cycle)

National Human Rights Institution (NHRI)

No