Articles for Oman

Oman has recently ratified two major human rights conventions the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT), the United Nations Convention on Enforced Disappearances (UNCED).
The accession to those major international Human Rights treaties took place in the view of the upcoming UPR-session originally scheduled on November 5, 2020, which has been postponed, as a result of the current COVID-19 situation, to January 2021. During previous UPR-sessions the ratification of the UNCAT and the UNCED has been persistently recommended by the Alkarama foundation.

Geneva (February 12, 2018) – The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has  today published an Opinion on the high-profile case of Om

On October 23, 2017, Omani journalist Yousuf Al Balouchi – known under the pen name of Yousuf Al Haj – was released from the Central Prison in Muscat after being detained for one year as a result of an article denouncing corruption at the Supreme Court level. Just weeks before his release, Al Zaman newspaper, where Al Haj was working at the time of his arrest, was permanently shut down by the authorities following a long legal dispute.

Yousuf Al Haj is an Omani journalist, who worked for the now banned Al Zaman newspaper. He was arrested in August 2016 and had first been sentenced to three years in prison on 25 September 2016. In December 2016, his sentence was reduced on appeal to one year in prison.

On 9 August 2016, Yousuf Al Haj, a journalist at Al Zaman newspaper, was arrested by Omani State Security Forces and the journal closed down because of articles denouncing corruption within the judiciary. Since his arrest, Yousuf Al Haj is detained in solitary confinement and his conditions of detention have affected his health.

On 26 August 2016, Alkarama received confirmation that prominent Omani human rights defender Said Jadad was released after having served his one year prison sentence in the Arzat prison in Salalah. Jadad had been convicted in March 2015 of “using information technology to prejudice public order” for a social media post, in which he likened the 2014 Hong Kong protests to those in Dhofar in 2011.

Known for criticising Oman's systematic repression of peaceful dissent, Said Ali Said Jadad, who has been the victim of reprisals for his human rights activism since 2013, was sentenced, on 8 March 2015, to three years imprisonment for "undermining the prestige of the state" and one year for "incitement to demonstrate" and "disturbing public order" by the Muscat Court.

On 4 May 2016, committed member of the Omani Parliament and environmental activist Talib Al Mamari was released three months prior to the end of his prison sentence. Al Mamari, who had been detained at Sama'il Prison near Muscat since August 2013, was released in the morning of 4 May on a royal pardon from Sultan Qaboos.

On 15 February 2016, 55-year-old writer and caricaturist Saeed bin Abdullah Ali Al Daroudi was sentenced by the Omani Court of Appeal to three months in prison for statements he published on his Facebook account on 7 October 2014.

On 25 November 2015, human rights defender Said Ali Said Jadad was arrested once more for "using the internet to disseminate material that would prejudice public order" after his sentence of one year in prison was upheld by the Salalah Court of Appeal on 18 November 2015. Known for his criticism of the Omani authorities' systematic repression of peaceful dissent, Said Jadad has been the victim of numerous acts of reprisals.