One year ago this month, the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA) co-founder Mohammad al-Bajadi was discharged from al-Hayer prison after serving a four-year sentence. He spent the next four months in Saudi Arabia’s notorious Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Counseling and Care, an extremist rehabilitation center, despite his lifelong record of non-violent,[…]
Mohammad al Qahtani is a former economics professor and one of the principal visionaries behind the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Associations (ACPRA). On 9 March 2013, a Riyadh criminal court sentenced him and fellow ACPRA co-founder, Abdullah al-Hamid, to ten and eleven years in prison respectively. Al-Qahtani’s sentencing and imprisonment is the result of[…]
Women’s rights defender, writer and blogger Ghada Jamsheer remains in jail in Bahrain serving a combined ten-month sentence for exercising her right to free expression on Twitter. On 7 November 2016, Jamsheer appeared before Judge Mohamed Al-Khalifa of the High Criminal Court of Appeal to request that she be freed to serve out the remainder[…]
On 4 November 2016, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sentenced Munir al-Adam, 23 years old, to death. Security forces arrested him in 2012 for his involvement in the 2011 protests, when he was 18 years old. During his trial, authorities did not allow him access to a lawyer. Al-Adam is partially blind and partially deaf.[…]
Using her Twitter handle, @angryarabiya, Zainab al-Khawaja amassed nearly 50,000 followers and became a prominent voice of the 2011 pro-democracy movement in Bahrain. She, along with fellow human rights defenders, provided on-the-ground updates on protests and demonstrations via her Twitter page. Her cyberactivism helped bring greater international attention to the human rights abuses committed by the Government[…]