The Gulf Centre for Human rights (GCHR) has learned that human rights defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli began a hunger strike at 7p.m. on 16 January 2013 to protest “the injustice and the charges fabricated unfairly against me by the security system.” according to a statement he released from the Central prison on the same day.

On 11 December 2012 Bedoon defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli was taken by police just hours before a planned protest demanding rights for Bedoon people was due to take place.  A state police car collided with his car and he was arrested.

On January 16, 2013 the Criminal Court in Kuwait upheld the verdict against Bedoon activist Abdul Hakim Al-Fadhli, which includes two years imprisonment –not suspended- for an alleged assault on a police officer during a peaceful demonstration last March calling for the human and civil rights of the Bedoon community to be respected. His brother Abdul Aziz Al-Fadhli was acquitted of the same charge.

The GCHR expresses serious concern at the on-going imprisonment of human rights defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli and calls on the authorities to immediately release him as he is being detained solely due to his peaceful human rights activities.

 The GCHR urges the authorities in Kuwait to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli who is being held as a direct result of his legitimate human rights work;

2. Guarantee the physical and psychological integrity and security of human rights defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli while in detention;

3. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Kuwait are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.

The GCHR respectfully reminds you that the United Nations Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by consensus by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1998, recognises the legitimacy of the activities of human rights defenders, their right to freedom of association and to carry out their activities without fear of reprisals. We would particularly draw your attention to Article 6 (c) “Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others: (c) To study, discuss, form and hold opinions on the observance, both in law and in practice, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and, through these and other appropriate means, to draw public attention to those matters” and to Article 12.2, which provides that “the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”.