For Immediate Release
The Arbitrary Arrest of Human Rights Activist:
Thamer Abdulkareem Al-Khather
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (March 7, 2010)
The Department of General Investigation (DGI) in Qassim (300 km North of the Saudi capital, Riyadh) arrested human rights activist, Thamer Abdulkareem Al-Khather, at 11PM on Wednesday March 3, 2010. Thamer Al-Khather is a university student interested in human rights and public affairs, an advocate of prisoners’ rights, and he is a member of the youth movement that calls for a constitutional reform. Thamer’s arrest sends the wrong message to young Saudis who are beginning to realize the importance of human rights approach and peaceful course of actions for change, as an alternative to violence and extremism. The repressive security Forces, however, do not differentiate between violence and peaceful action.
It is noteworthy that Thamer is the eldest son of Dr. Abdulkareem Youssef Al-Khather, Professor of Comparative Jurisprudence at the Faculty of Islamic Jurisprudence at Qassim University, and a member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA). Perhaps, the arrest is an attempt to occupy the father with his son’s detention, and away from his human rights work.
It is also noteworthy that Dr. AbdulKareem Al-Khather and his son, Thamer, have been constantly harassed by DGI’s clandestine detectives a week before Thamer’s arrest.
ACPRA would like to declare that the arrest of Thamer Al-Kather is an arbitrary detention contrary to local regulations and a clear violation of international law. Hence, ACPRA calls for his immediate release, with no further restriction or requirement.
On the other hand, Qassim’s DGI has launched an extensive campaign of raids and arrests in Buraidah (Qassim’s provincial capital) targeting youths and adolescents. The preliminary estimates indicate that the number of arrested individuals is more than fifty people, including Sulman Ahmed Al-Aeaf , Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Al-Aeaf, Ammar Ahmed Khaled Al-Othaim, Khaleed Al-Sweed, Sheikh Ali bin Abdulrahman Al-Qafari, and Abdullah Fahad Al-Reshudi’s two sons. In some of the cases, the arrests have included entire families both women and their children even babies, as what happened to Al-Mua’tiq family.
Repressive security forces exercised a blackout on the arrests, and intimidated anyone who circulates news of the campaign. This is what happened to the human rights activist Ms. Rema Al-Juraish, the mastermind of the public sit-in in Qassim organized by female relatives of political detainees in 2008. DGI detectives forced her husband, Mohammed Saleh Al-Hamli who has been detained for six years, to put his thumbprint on a confession that his wife is recognized as a security threat to the state, inciting people against the state, and having dubious relationships with international organizations and suspected people. All of these accusations came about because Ms. Al-Juraish sent an SMS message to ACPRA members, the message showed the fate of Al-Mua’tiq family who are all arrested even their infants, and one of their daughters suffered a nerves breakdown.
ACPRA calls upon the Interior Ministry (DGI) to adhere to its commitment to local regulations and international law, signed and ratified by the Saudi government. The ministry must also respect human rights and especially the manner of the search and arrest, imprisonment, and preserve the rights of the accused and the prisoner.
Respectfully,
The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association
ACPRA