Help promote human rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Donate Today
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin Youtube Envelope
Search
Close
  • English
  • العربية
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • FAQs
    • Support Dawn
    • Work With Us
    • For the Media
  • Founder Jamal Khashoggi
    • Who Was Jamal Khashoggi?
    • Chronology of a Murder
    • UN Recommendations
    • International Reaction
    • In His Own Words
    • DAWN and Jamal
  • Countries
    • Saudi Arabia
    • Egypt
    • UAE
    • Israel-Palestine
    • DAWN's Culprits Gallery
  • Democracy In Exile
    • About
    • Submission Guidelines for Democracy in Exile
  • Advocacy
    • DAWN's Advocacy
    • The Lobbyist Hall of Shame
    • DAWN's Culprits Gallery
    • Reforming Foreign Policy
      • Aid Conditionality
      • Human Rights Go to War
    • US Foreign Policy in MENA
    • Joint Advocacy
  • Experts
  • Latest
Menu
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • FAQs
    • Support Dawn
    • Work With Us
    • For the Media
  • Founder Jamal Khashoggi
    • Who Was Jamal Khashoggi?
    • Chronology of a Murder
    • UN Recommendations
    • International Reaction
    • In His Own Words
    • DAWN and Jamal
  • Countries
    • Saudi Arabia
    • Egypt
    • UAE
    • Israel-Palestine
    • DAWN's Culprits Gallery
  • Democracy In Exile
    • About
    • Submission Guidelines for Democracy in Exile
  • Advocacy
    • DAWN's Advocacy
    • The Lobbyist Hall of Shame
    • DAWN's Culprits Gallery
    • Reforming Foreign Policy
      • Aid Conditionality
      • Human Rights Go to War
    • US Foreign Policy in MENA
    • Joint Advocacy
  • Experts
  • Latest
Donate

Organizations Highlight Killing of Prominent Cleric to Call Out Abuse in Saudi Prisons

October 19, 2021
in Advocacy, Saudi Arabia, US - Saudi Arabia
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Prominent Saudi academic reformer, Musa al-Qarni, dies in detention after his health deteriorated while serving a 15-year prison sentence. DAWN joins human rights organizations in highlighting the dire human rights record of the Saudi kingdom.

On 12 October 2021, the human rights community was shocked to learn of the murder in prison of dissident academic and campaigner for reform Musa al-Qarni.

Witnesses reported that al-Qarni was beaten around the head and face with sharp objects, causing facial injuries and fractures to his skull that led to his death.

We, the undersigned human rights organisations, are calling urgently for an independent international investigation into this crime, both to ensure that those responsible are punished and to protect other prisoners of conscience from any repetition of this tragedy.

Al-Qarni was arrested in February 2007 and eventually sentenced in November 2011 by the Criminal Court to 20 years in prison followed by a travel ban of similar duration.

Al-Qarni was born in 1954 in Saudi Arabia's Jizan Province. He began his university studies at the College of Sharia in Riyadh and went on to obtain a doctorate in usul al-fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence) from Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca. He taught at several universities, such as the Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Saudi Arabia and the University of Da'wa and Jihad in Pakistan.

On 2 February 2007, al-Qarni was arrested among a group of academics and clerics known as "the Jeddah Reformers." The group's membership included Sulaiman al-Rashoudi, Saud al-Hashimi, Abdulaziz al-Khereiji, and Essam Basrawi. They were accused of founding a secret organisation with the aim of spreading anarchy and seizing power with foreign help.

In November 2011, the Saudi Criminal Court handed down prison sentences on 16 defendants, among them al-Qarni, totaling 228 years.

Al-Qarni had already been subjected to beatings and torture in prison, and he suffered a stroke in May 2018. The prison administration gave him the wrong medication before transferring him to a psychiatric hospital, with the aim of damaging his intellectual reputation and giving the impression that he was mentally ill.

In Saudi Arabia, prisoners are often isolated in bare cells at temperatures of extreme cold or extreme heat, forced to stand on one leg or on a chair for hours, and deprived of sleep, food, and vital medication. These practices are applied especially to prisoners of conscience, whom the authorities seek to punish further as a form of vengeance.

Al-Qarni's killing is a stark illustration of the violations suffered by the majority of prisoners of conscience in Saudi jails, including torture, denial of medical treatment, and denial of family contact. His killing also sends a warning to other prisoners of conscience that they are not safe from the brutality of the Saudi authorities, even in prison.

Pioneering human rights activist Abdullah al-Hamid, one of the founding members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) died in April 2020 at the age of 69 while in detention, after the Saudi authorities repeatedly refused him medical treatment. They also deliberately prevented him from calling his relatives to tell them that he needed emergency surgery, but had been discharged from hospital. He was denied the necessary operation right until his death.

Ahmed al-Amari al-Zahrani died of a brain haemorrhage in January 2019 after being tortured in Dhahban Prison.

Journalist Saleh al-Shehi died on 19 July 2020 just two months after being unexpectedly released from prison. Although the authorities stated that he had died because of the coronavirus, the circumstances of his death, as well as of his release, remain shrouded in mystery.

Prisoner Zaheer Ali Shareeda died in May 2021, again in mysterious circumstances. Before he died, Shareeda and a group of other prisoners, including Mohammed al-Qahtani and Essa al-Nukheifi, had announced their intention to go on indefinite hunger strike. Following this announcement, officials at Al-Ha'ir Prison separated Shareeda from the other prisoners. When they later brought him back he was infected with coronavirus, the prison administration claimed. He died a few days later.

The murder of Musa al-Qarni is yet another of the Saudi authorities' crimes against human rights and political activists, campaigners for reform, and other prisoners of conscience. We, the undersigned human rights organisations, call for an immediate, independent, international inquiry. The international community should demand Saudi authorities be held to account for al-Qarni's death and for  the protection of all prisoners of conscience in Saudi prisons.

Signatories:

ALQST for Human Rights 

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)

MENA Rights Group

Tags: human rightshuman rights abusespolitical prisonersprisoner's of consciousSaudi Arabiatorture
Previous Post

Buck McKeon and Firm Made Over $2 Million Lobbying for Saudi Government

Next Post

Rights Groups Call on Egypt to End Gender Discrimination

Related Posts

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 11: Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joins an event about "the growing Chinese threat in the Arctic region" at the Hudson Institute on October 11, 2022 in Washington, DC. A distinguished fellow at Hudson, Pompeo described China, Russia and Iran's efforts in the Arctic as a "grand conspiracy" and said the United States must stop it as a matter of national security. In 2021, following his time in the administration of former President Donald Trump,  Pompeo was sanctioned by China and is prohibited from traveling to the communist country. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
DAWN

Response to Comments by Mike Pompeo Regarding the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi

(January 23, 2023, New York): In response to comments reportedly made by Mike Pompeo in his new memoir, Democracy...

DAWN
January 23, 2023
DAWN

US: Impose Khashoggi Ban Sanctions on Saudi Agent Ibrahim Alhussayen

(Washington, D.C., January 18, 2023) – The State Department should sanction Ibrahim Alhussayen, an agent of the Saudi government,...

DAWN
January 18, 2023
Image courtesy of Bahrain Institute for Rights & Democracy, BIRD.
Advocacy

Bahrain: Free Academic Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace on 61st Birthday After 12 Years in Detention

Rights Groups Urge Bahrain to Release Dr Abduljalil Al Singace, Jailed Academic on Hunger Strike 15 January 2023 marked...

DAWN
January 17, 2023
ILLUSTRATION - 11 January 2021, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Stuttgart: The start page with the logo of the German-language Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia is displayed on a monitor. The main page can be seen in the foreground. The project was founded on January 15, 2001. Photo: Sebastian Gollnow/dpa (Photo by Sebastian Gollnow/picture alliance via Getty Images)
DAWN

Saudi Arabia: Government Agents Infiltrate Wikipedia, Sentence Independent Wikipedia Administrators to Prison

(January 5, 2023 – New York and Beirut): The Saudi Arabian government infiltrated Wikipedia by recruiting the organization’s highest...

DAWN
January 16, 2023
Next Post

Rights Groups Call on Egypt to End Gender Discrimination

The Case for Reparations to the Victims of Yemen's War

February 2, 2023

We Are All Alaa Abdel Fattah

February 1, 2023
A picture taken during a guided tour organised by Egypt's State Information Service on February 11, 2020, shows an Egyptian policeman near watch towers at Tora prison on the southern outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP) (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Egypt: Mother of Teenager Sentenced for Peaceful 2019 Protests Commits Suicide

February 1, 2023

Categories

  • Advocacy
  • Aid Conditionality
  • Anonymous Interviews
  • Anonymous Interviews Egypt
  • Anonymous Interviews Saudi Arabia
  • Anonymous Interviews UAE
  • Cases
  • Cases Egypt
  • Cases Saudi Arabia
  • Cases UAE
  • Countries
  • Culprits
  • Culprits Egypt
  • Culprits Israel
  • Culprits Saudi Arabia
  • Culprits UAE
  • DAWN
  • Dawn's Advocacy
  • Democracy In Exile
  • Editor's Pick
  • Egypt
  • Feature
  • Fellows
  • Foreign Policy
  • Human Rights
  • Human Rights Go to War
  • International Actors
  • Israel-Palestine
  • Lobbyists
  • Lobbyists Israel Palestine
  • Palestine
  • Political prisoners
  • Press Release Egypt
  • Press Release Israel-Palestine
  • Press Release Saudi Arabia
  • Press Release UAE
  • Press Releases
  • Saudi Arabia
  • UAE
  • Uncategorized
  • United Nations
  • US – Egypt
  • US – Saudi Arabia
  • US – UAE
  • USA

SUPPORT OUR MISSION

Donate Today

About Us

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) is a nonprofit organization that promotes democracy, the rule of law, and human rights for all of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Support Us

Donate Now

Newsletter

Facebook Twitter Instagram Linkedin Youtube

© DAWN All rights reserved. | Website Design by KRS Creative.

DONATE TODAY