On 30 November 2022, Alkarama alerted the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the situation of Mr Khaled bin Mohamed AL RASHED, detained since 2006 and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for having publicly criticized the policies of the country's leaders.
Human rights sources reported that the Saudi Criminal Court of Appeal decided to toughen the sentence issued against the Saudi preacher, Khaled Al-Rashed, condemning him a second time, and adding another 17 years to his sentence, to become 40 years, in another flagrant violation of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s Opinion calling for his release.
The wife of prominent Saudi Arabian prisoner of conscience Dr Muhammad Al-Qahtani has called for the disclosure of her husband’s fate who has been cut off from all telephone contact. The authorities cut off his usual telephone contact with his family, which was scheduled for October 24.
Alkarama learned from Saudi human rights sources that the Criminal Court of Appeal, which specializes in state security cases, had issued a five-year prison sentence against the detained Yemeni journalist, Marwan Al-Muraisy.
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.
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 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.
On Friday 24 June 2022, Saudi authorities on Friday released Murtaji Qureis, the kingdom’s youngest political detainee, according to reliable Saudi human rights sources.
The UN human rights experts reminded the Saudi authorities of their obligations to “of their obligation to conduct a prompt and impartial investigation wherever there are reasonable grounds to believe that torture has been committed, and to exclude any evidence obtained through torture and coercion from judicial proceedings”.
They underscored that “prolonged incommunicado detention can facilitate the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and can in itself constitute a form of such treatment”.
