Saudi Arabia: Human Rights Lawyer subject to Travel Ban wins Human Rights Watch Award

Saudi human rights lawyer Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim is the winner of the Human Rights Watch 2008 Human Rights Defender award. 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.

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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.

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-Hair 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. 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.