On International Human Rights Day – which falls today, on the 10^th of December – the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) expresses full solidarity and support to its fellow human rights defenders who are currently imprisoned on charges relating to their peaceful and legitimate work in the field of human rights and calls on governments in the region to release them immediately and unconditionally.

On this day, we remember the founder of the GCHR Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja who is a prominent defender of human rights, sentenced to life imprisonment in Bahrain. We also equally commemorate all our colleagues in Syria, who are languishing in prisons, including Khalil Ma’touq, Bassel Al-Safadi, and members of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression Mazen Darwish, Hani Al-Zitani, and Hussein Ghreer, in addition to the head of the Syrian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Jdea Nawfal, as well as members of the Violations Documentation Center, Razan Zaitouneh, Wa’el Hamada, Samira Khalil and Nazem Hamadi, who have been kidnaped  on 9 December 2013, by an armed group in Syria.

We also remember human rights lawyers Dr. Mohammed Al-Roken and Dr. Mohamed al-Mansoori and all their fellow prisoners in UAE as well as founders and members of the Civil and Political Rights Association in Saudi Arabia Dr. Mohammed Al-Qahtani, Dr. Abdullah Al-Hamid, and Fawzan Al-Harbi, also the head of Monitor for Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Walid Abu Al K-hair, in addition to Raef Badawi, Souad Al-Shammari, Maysaa Al-Amodi, Lujain Al-Hathlol and all other colleagues and hundreds of thousands of prisoners of conscience in Saudi Arabia. In Qatar we always remember the poet and prisoner of conscience Mohammed Rashid Al-Ajami.

We also commemorate the prominent human rights lawyers, Dr. Abdel Fattah Sultani, and Nasrin Sotoudeh who was arrested today during a protest along with her husband, as well as women’s rights defender Bahareh Hedayat and all her colleagues in Iran who altogether are languishing in Iran’s prisons.

We strongly recall the defender of human rights, prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah, imprisoned several times because of his peaceful and legitimate defense of civil and human rights of citizens in Egypt.

The GCHR salutes and expresses its solidarity with each and every human rights defender behind bars as well as with all activists in Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen and throughout the world.

The GCHR expresses its deep concern with regards to the baseless charges against human rights defenders and their constant judicial harassment through trials lacking legal procedures and the international standards required for fair trials and expresses deep concern with regards to the arbitrary imprisonment and targeting of human rights defenders and activists in the rest of the region. The GCHR believes that these actions are directly linked to their peaceful and legitimate activities in the field of human rights and are nothing but attempts to obstruct their human rights work.

The GCHR urges the governments in the region to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release all the detained human rights defenders and the rest of the activists;

2. Ensure that all human rights defenders in the region, who are practicing their legitimate work in defense of human rights, are able to work without facing 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 Recognised 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 5 (c): “For the purpose of promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, at the national and international levels: (c) To communicate with non-governmental or intergovernmental organizations” and 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.”