(New York) – The Saudi government should immediately lift a travel ban on Saudi human rights lawyer Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, a winner of the 2008 Human Rights Defender award, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also announced four other winners of the 2008 award, courageous individuals working for justice and human rights from Uzbekistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, and Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Al-Lahim stands for justice and the rule of law in Saudi Arabia,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior researcher on Saudi Arabia at Human Rights Watch. “Barring al-Lahim from travel only highlights the severe and arbitrary limits to basic freedoms and fairness in the kingdom.”
Human Rights Watch called on Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abd al-‘Aziz to immediately lift the government’s ban on foreign travel for al-Lahim so that he can attend the award ceremonies in London, Paris, and Geneva in November 2008. The ministry imposed the travel ban on al-Lahim in 2004 in connection with his calls for peaceful reform.
In November 2006, Dr. Ahmad Salim, the secretary-general of the Ministry of Interior, promised Human Rights Watch to look into the reasons for the travel ban, but with no results. The Saudi Human Rights Commission, a government body, met with Prince Nayef in 2007 in an effort to get the travel ban on al-Lahim removed, but the restriction remains in place. In a letter to King Abdullah, Human Rights Watch emphasized that bans on foreign travel against al-Lahim and 21 other reform activists and public critics of government policies violates Saudi Arabia’s obligations under international law.
Al-Lahim came to prominence in Saudi Arabia and the wider region when he represented the “Girl of Qatif” in her appeal against a sentence of 90 lashes for having in 2006 illegally “mingled” with an unrelated man in a car, before a gang of seven men set upon her and the unrelated man and raped them both. After al-Lahim spoke out about the injustice of punishing the victim, the appeals court raised her sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and confiscated his law license. Al-Lahim has stood firmly in support of the woman while senior clerics, judges, and the Ministry of Justice besmirched the young woman’s reputation and others called him a “traitor to the country.” In December 2007, King Abdullah set aside the sentences of the woman and man.
In March 2004, Saudi authorities arrested al-Lahim, Ali al-Dumaini, Matrook al-Faleh, Abdullah al-Hamid and eight other activists for having signed and circulated petitions calling for reform. Al-Lahim, who was released without charge, became the lead defense lawyer for the trial against al-Dumaini, al-Hamid, and al-Faleh that started in August 2004. In November 2004, the authorities rearrested al-Lahim after he stated on Al Jazeera satellite television that he believed his clients to be innocent. A court in May 2005 sentenced al-Dumaini, al-Hamid, and al-Faleh respectively to nine, seven, and six years in prison. Al-Lahim remained in solitary confinement in al-Ha’ir political prison until King Abdullah pardoned and released all four just days after acceding to the throne in August 2005. The other activists arrested in March 2004 also remain banned from foreign travel.
Al-Lahim quickly returned to human rights legal advocacy, defending two teachers in court against charges of blasphemy introduced by their colleagues and students who disapproved of their modern, unorthodox teaching methods. King Abdullah pardoned both teachers.
Al-Lahim was the first lawyer to bring a criminal case against Saudi Arabia’s religious police in a court of law. In 2005, he represented a woman named Umm Faisal in a case against the religious police for wrongful deprivation of liberty. A court ruled that the religious police are “not to be held accountable.” Religious policemen had stopped Faisal’s car, forced her driver out, and drove Faisal and her daughter at high speed through Riyadh before crashing the car, taking away the women’s mobile phones, locking them inside the car, and fleeing on foot. Al-Lahim is now representing Faisal in her lawsuit against the religious police for damages in that case in a civil court. In 2007, al-Lahim also represented the family of Salman al-Huraisi in appealing against a court’s acquittal of two religious policemen who had beaten al-Huraisi to death in May 2007. The appeal is pending.
Human Rights Watch has documented extensive shortcomings in the Saudi justice system, publishing a report on the topic in March 2008.
“Al-Lahim fights for the rights of his fellow citizens against arbitrary rulings that have no basis in law,” Wilcke said. “He is at the forefront of the struggle for the kind of judicial reforms that King Abdullah has launched.”
