RIYADH (Dispatches) – Saudi regime authorities have released human rights defender, Abdul Rahman Al-Shamiri, after detaining him for 15 years.
The rights organization ALQST and the Prisoners of Conscience Twitter account quoted sources as saying that Al-Shimiri was released “following the expiry of his sentence.”
Al-Shamiri is a retired Saudi academic who worked at Umm Al-Qura University. He was also a consultant in the kingdom’s Shura Council for years.
He was arrested in 2007, and sentenced to a 15-year prison term on charges including “disobeying the ruler”.
In December 2003, Al-Shamiri was one of the signatories of a reform document sent to the Saudi monarch at the time, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, demanding Saudis be allowed to participate in the political system. The document was followed by others, including one which demanded the release of three rights defenders, including the late Abdullah Al-Hamid.
On the same day of Al-Shamiri’s releae, Saudi authorities passed a prison sentence against a prominent religious scholar and political dissident Dr. Nasser al-Omar.
The Prisoners of Conscience, an independent non-governmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia, announced in a post on its official Twitter page that the so-called Specialized Criminal Court slapped a ten-year jail term on al-Omar, who has been behind bars for the past four years.
According to the organization, Omar told the presiding judge before the verdict that he had been granted clemency by Saudi King Salman. The judge replied that the pardon did not include former detainees, and that he was charged with hosting Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal abroad.
On June 10, 2020, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) hired one of the world’s largest public relations firms by revenue to help clean up his criminal image, and promote his $500 billion futuristic megacity.
A human rights organization has launched a campaign in the United States against the Saudi crown prince to expose his disdain for democracy.
“We remind you that Mohammed bin Salman is not a generous reformer. He is an assassin,” the Washington-based Freedom First wrote in a series of posts published on Twitter.