The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) reports that prominent Saudi human rights lawyer Walid Abu Al-Khair has begun a hunger strike to protest ill-treatment by the administration of Thahban reformatory prison in Jeddah, where he is serving a 15-year sentence for his peaceful human rights activities.

On 07 June 2016, Abu Al-Khair began an open-ended hunger strike demanding that Thahban reformatory prison management stop targeting him. The prison administration has not allowed him to take medical tests, prevented him from ordering appropriate foods that suit his health condition, and continue to prevent him from special visits or reading books or daily newspapers.

GCHR condemns the targeting of Waleed Abu Al-Khair by the prison administration and demands it cease this practice, which contradicts its obligations stipulated by the Standard Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners of 1955 in Geneva adopted by the United Nations.

For more information about his case, please click the following link:
https://www.gc4hr.org/news/index/country/3

GCHR urge the authorities in Saudi Arabia to: 

1. Stop the series of harassment and ill-treatment suffered by Waleed Abu Al-Khair while in prison;
2. Immediately and unconditionally release Waleed Abu Al-Khair;
3. Immediately and unconditionally drop all charges against Waleed Abu Al-Khair;
4. Guarantee the physical and psychological safety and integrity of Waleed Abu Al-Khair while he remains in detention and immediately transfer him to a prison close to his family; and
5. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.

GCHR respectfully remind the authorities in Saudi Arabia 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, recognizes 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 12 (2): “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, threat, 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.”