On 23 September 2022, Alkarama addressed the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention regarding the situation of Colonel Osama Muhammad Saleh AL GHAFIR AL OBEID who was captured in 2016 by General Khalifa Haftar's militia while securing oil installations in the Sirte region. 

Context

Despite numerous calls by independent UN experts to revise its anti-terrorism legislation, which violates both domestic and international law, the Algerian authorities have unlawfully registered 16 people on "terrorist" lists. 

On 14 September 2022, Alkarama submitted the situation of Aida AL GHAMDI and her son, Adel AL GHAMDI, to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

Both were arrested, without a judicial warrant, on 26 March 2018 by agents of the General Directorate of Investigations of the Ministry of Interior (the "Mabahiths") in plain clothes while driving in a neighborhood of Jeddah.

The facts

Several Saudi and foreign activists, NGOs and Alkarama launched a human rights campaign to demand the release of prisoners of conscience in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to denounce the unjust rulings issued by the Saudi authorities recently, which affected a number of prisoners of conscience, including detainees whose sentences have expired or are nearing completion, in flagrant violation of the principles of justice and international laws and covenants.

On 05 August 2022, Alkarama submitted the cases of Ahmed Ghaith AL SUWAIDI, Ahmed AL ZAABI, Ali AL HAMMADI, Ibrahim AL MARZOOQI, Hassan AL JABIRI, Husain AL JABIRI, Shaheen ALHOSANI, Sultan Bin Kayed AL QASIMI, Abdulsalam Darwish AL MARZOOQI, Khalid Mohammed ALYAMMAHI to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding their continued detention in the Munasaha centres despite the expiry of their sentences.

Background

As civil society organizations from Yemen and around the world we urge United Nations (UN) member states to work toward the establishment of an independent international criminally focused investigative mechanism on Yemen in the coming period, including at the upcoming 51st Session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

Alkarama’s director, Rachid Mesli, said during his online participation in a human rights symposium on the occasion of the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances, “The Iraqi authorities are unwilling to hold those involved in the crimes of enforced disappearance to account.”, pointing to the clear complicity between successive governments and the militias that commit these crimes.

Alkarama and other Yemeni and international human rights organisations issued a statement on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, celebrated on 30 August each year.

The joint statement calls for the urgent intervention of all parties to the conflict in Yemen to ensure the release of those arbitrarily detained, and the respect of their rights to dignity, safety and security.

The family of detainee Abdel Rahman ELSAYAR said Egyptian authorities had transferred their son to Badr prison, east of Cairo.  Badr is a recently created prison complex which, according to the authorities, is dedicated to the reception of prisoners serving short sentences, and where “emphasis is put on their professional qualification”.

On 2 August 2022, Alkarama submitted the cases of Mr Abdulkarim Al Khodr and Mr Jaber Suleiman Al Amri to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding their detention in the Munasaha centers despite the expiration of their prison sentences.

Background