Saudi human rights activist sentenced to 15 years in prison

Saudi human rights activist Walid Abu al-Khair has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on sedition charges. He's the founder of Monitor Human Rights in Saudi Arabia.

Deutsche Welle, 6 July 2014

The Saudi court in Jeddah also banned al-Khair on Sunday from travelling outside of the ultraconservative kingdom for an additional 15 years and slapped him with a 200,000 riyal ($53,300) fine. His websites were also shut down.

He was convicted on charges of breaking allegiance to King Abdullah, disrespecting authorities, and creating an unauthorized association. Al-Khair has been under house arrest since April 16.

"Walid does not recognize the legitimacy of this court, refuses to accept its verdict and has no intention to appeal," al-Khair's wife, Samar Badawi, told the AFP news agency.

According to Badawi, her husband faces other charges for setting up the group Monitor Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRS) without a permit. She says that al-Khair sought a permit, but received no response from the authorities. Afterward, he set up an MHRS Facebook page which has attracted thousands of followers.

The lawyer has been critical of Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism law, which critics say is used as a pretext to stiffle political dissent. Under the law, terrorism is defined as any act that "disturbs public order, shakes the security of society, or subjects its national unity to danger, or obstructs the primary system of rule or harms the reputation of state."

'Prisoner of conscience'

In October, al-Khair was sentenced to three months in jail for signing a petition in 2011 against the imprisonment of a group of activists demanding political reform. That same month, he was briefly detained and then released on bail after setting up an unauthorized meeting of activists.

In 2012, Saudi authorities banned al-Khair from traveling to the United States, where he was supposed to attend a forum at the State Department.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International has called for al-Khair's immediate release.

"He is a prisoner of conscience and must be released immediately and unconditionally," said Amnesty's Said Boumedouha, calling al-Khair's detention "a worrying example of how Saudi Arabian authorities are abusing the justice system to silence peaceful dissent."

slk/hc (AFP, Reuters)