19/06/2026
Urgent - Saudi Arabia
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More than ten years have passed since the detention of lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair for his human rights work. We reiterate our demand Saudi Arabia must end his case and release him.
Switzerland - Geneva, June 19, 2026
The International Center for Supporting Rights and Freedoms calls on the Saudi authorities to drop the charges against lawyer and human rights defender Waleed Abu al-Khair, and to release him unconditionally.
Lawyer Abu al-Khair was the first to issue a statement on constitutional monarchy and defended the Jeddah reformists and members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA). He also co-founded the Saudi Human Rights Monitor in 2008.
Mr. Abu al-Khair is being treated inhumanely. He previously went on an open hunger strike on November 28, 2019, to protest his transfer to the maximum security section.
ICSRF also received information on October 11, 2022, that the prison administration was denying him treatment and access to a specialist doctor. To this day, Saudi Arabia continues to deprive him of his freedom.
Mr. Abu Al-Khair is being held in Al-Ha'ir prison in Riyadh to serve a 15-year prison sentence, a fine of 200,000 Saudi riyals, and a travel ban for another 15 years due to his work in the field of human rights.
His ordeal began on April 15, 2014, after he went to the Specialized Criminal Court in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to attend his trial session on numerous charges brought against him due to his work as a lawyer and human rights defender.
These charges included disobeying the ruler, inciting public opinion, establishing a human rights observatory in Saudi Arabia, defaming the Kingdom, and publicly slandering the Sharia judiciary. All news of him was cut off at that time, as the authorities immediately detained him and took him to Al-Ha'ir prison, south of the capital, Riyadh, after issuing the aforementioned ruling.
Mr. Abu Al-Khair had previously been subjected to harassment, arrest, and repeated detention by the Jeddah police, Saudi Arabia, prior to his sentencing, due to the Sumoud Diwaniya meetings he had held since 2011, during which he hosted a number of reform activists to discuss legal, social, and intellectual issues. In this context,
we must note the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups, and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, to which the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as a member of the international community, must adhere.
Article 1 of the Declaration states that “Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels.”
Article 2 of the Declaration also states that
“Each State has the primary responsibility and duty to protect, promote and realize all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including by taking such steps as may be necessary to create all necessary conditions in the social, economic, political, and other fields, as well as by Providing the necessary legal guarantees to enable all persons within its jurisdiction, individually and in association with others, to enjoy all these rights and freedoms in practice.
2. Each State shall take the necessary legislative, administrative and other steps to ensure the effective enjoyment of the rights and freedoms referred to in this Declaration.
Article 3 of the Declaration also states, "Domestic law, consistent with the Charter of the United Nations and other international obligations of States in the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms, shall constitute the legal framework within which human rights and fundamental freedoms shall be exercised and enjoyed, and all activities referred to in this Declaration shall be carried out to promote, protect, and effectively realize those rights and freedoms."
ICSRF declares its full solidarity with lawyer and human rights defender Waleed Abu Al-Khair and calls on the Saudi authorities to end his case and release him unconditionally.
ICSRF also expresses its solidarity with all human rights defenders detained and banned from travel within the Kingdom and demands their release. It also calls on the Saudi authorities to immediately cease all forms of persecution, whether by security, judicial, or legislative means, against human rights defenders, and to guarantee the rights of activists to carry out their work, which is protected by international agreements and treaties.
On October 1, 2020, lawyer Ahmed Aly, Head of ICSRF, called on the Human Rights Council, in an oral intervention at the 45th session, to consider the human rights situation within the GCC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he_AMKiLitY&feature=youtu.be
The International Center for Supporting Rights and Freedoms
https://icsrf-gcc.org/index.php/arab/ksa/2340