Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) condemned the Saudi judiciary’s decision issued today, Sunday, August 8, 2021, to imprison 24 Palestinian citizens for varying periods. Those sentences were charged with supporting the Palestinian people, as part of a case against 69 Jordanian and Palestinian detainees, in an unfair and politicized trial that lacked the minimum standards of a fair trial.
AOHR UK stressed that the rulings issued by the Saudi judiciary support the strict siege on the Palestinian people and aim at ending their cause.
AOHR UK also pointed out that their trial lacks any legal basis, especially since all detainees were legal residents in Saudi Arabia with valid residence permits, and none of them committed any kind of violation or breached the Saudi law.
The Saudi authorities launched a campaign of arrests in February 2019, against more than 60 Jordanians and Palestinians, before including them in a sham mass trial after subjecting them to grave violations and holding them for months without formal charges, before issuing prison sentences against them today.
Mohamed Al-Abed was sentenced to 22 years in prison, Mohamed Al-Banna 20 years, Ayman Al-Arian 19 years, Mohamed Abu Al-Rub 18 years, Saado Al-Sahar 18 years, Sherif Nasrallah 16 years, Jamal Al-Dahoudi 15 years, Omar Aref Al-Hajj 12 years, Essam Al-Sharif 10 years, Arafat Samra 10, years Mohamed Qafa 8 years, Ahmed Abu Jabal 8 years, Bassem Al-Kurdi 7years, Maher Al-Halman 6 years, Saleh Qafa 5 years, and Mashhour Al-Sada 5 and a half years, Ayman Ghazal 4 years, Musa Abu Hussein 4 years, Mohamed Ashour 4, years and Jamal Abu Omar, Tariq Abbas, Tariq Al-Sawafiri, and Hani Al-Khodari, each for six months.
AOHR UK criticized the Saudi Authority’s insistence on issuing these unfair sentences against Palestinian and Jordanian detainees, including elderly and sick patients like Dr. Mohamed Al-Khudari, who is over 80 years old and suffers from serious diseases.
AOHR UK called on the United Nations’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to put pressure on the Saudi authorities to release all Palestinian and Jordanian detainees and to ensure that they obtain all their rights guaranteed in international covenants and treaties.
AOHR UK also called on civil forces, activists, journalists, and human rights defenders to form a public opinion rejecting these provisions and to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to release all Palestinians detained in it, especially in light of the critical conditions the Palestinian people are going through.
It is unacceptable that a number of Palestinian activists continue to be arrested on charges of providing support to orphans and the poor in Palestine.
