RIYADH (Dispatches) – An independent nongovernmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia says the Riyadh regime is making use of arbitrary arrest to silence opponents of normalization of ties between the Zionist and Saudi regimes.
The London-based rights group ALQST said Saudi officials have kept writer and researcher Abdullah al-Yahya behind bars since December 24 last year, after he criticized normalization with the Zionist regime in a series of posts published on Twitter.
The organization highlighted that Yahya is not the first Saudi citizen to be arrested because of his support for the Palestinian cause and opposition to normalization, as Saudi authorities have previously detained dozens of preachers, academics and bloggers for their refusal to establishment of ties between Riyadh and the occupying regime.
Last April, the so-called Special Criminal Court in Riyadh sentenced famous Saudi blogger Abdulaziz al-Odah to five years in prison for opposing normalization of relations with the Zionist regime.
The Prisoners of Conscience, an independent nongovernmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia, announced in a post on its official Twitter page at the time that Odah was detained in September 2019 on the grounds of his rejection of normalization.
On Monday, a high-ranking official at the Zionist regime’s ministry of foreign affairs said the regime is working behind the scenes towards normalization of diplomatic relations with Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, more than a year after the regime reached similar U.S.-brokered agreements with a number of Arab states.
“These are the two countries we want to reach an agreement with, but it is a slow process that takes a lot of time and effort. We hope for the best,” the unnamed official noted at a media briefing.
The United States has raised the issue of normalization between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime in recent years. Jared Kushner, ex-U.S. president Donald Trump’s son-in-law, wrote in March 2021 that normalization between Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime was “in sight”.
Meanwhile, the Moroccan Front in Support of Palestine and Against Normalization has reiterated its rejection of all forms of normalization with the occupying regime, calling to immediately revoke the agreements signed with the regime, although a year has passed since their announcement.
The group, which includes a number of civil society organizations, noted the great response by Moroccans to the protest movements called for to mark the one-year anniversary of this “ominous deal”.