News / Saudi Arabia

Amnesty slams 'harsh' sentences against Saudi rights activists

Thursday, 25 January 2018 6:40 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 25 January 2018 6:40 PM ]

The handout picture provided by the Saudi Royal Palace on August 23, 2017 shows Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attending a military parade by security forces in the holy city of Mecca. (Via AFP)

Amnesty International has censured jail sentences handed down to two prominent Saudi human rights defenders, saying the verdicts show Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's resolve to suppress the civil society.

The London-based rights group said on Thursday that the Specialized Criminal Court in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, had sentenced Mohammad al-Otaibi and Abdullah al-Attawi to 14 and seven years in prison, respectively.

“The harsh sentencing of Mohammad al-Otaibi and Abdullah al-Attawi, who should never have been prosecuted in the first place, confirms our fears that the new leadership of Mohamed bin Salman is determined to silence civil society and human rights defenders in the Kingdom, " said Samah Hadid, director of Campaigns for the Middle-East at Amnesty International.

The Saudi crackdown "has continued unabated, with almost all the country’s most prominent human rights defenders now behind bars," she added.

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Bin Salman was appointed the first in line to the Saudi throne by his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in June 2017. Since then, he has engaged in a string of radical economic and social projects in a bid to portray himself as “reformist." But those projects have been widely seen as a means to consolidate the crown prince's power and silence his critics.

Hadid stressed that bin Salman's crackdown on rights activists "fly in the face of his recently declared ambitions to modernize the Kingdom," demanding the release of all prisoners of conscience.

“If Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is truly intent on bringing reforms to Saudi Arabia, he must ensure the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience, including human rights defenders, detained solely for peacefully exercising their human rights," she said.

Otaibi and Attawi were charged with participating in setting up an organization, announcing it before securing an authorization, dividing national unity, spreading chaos and publishing statements harmful to the Saudi kingdom's image.

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