Rights groups seek release of Bahraini men
By rasha al qahtani
BAHRAIN human rights activists and their Saudi counterparts will soon meet to discuss efforts in the release of two Bahraini men, who are being held without charge there.
The Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society (BHRWS) said that the Saudi Human Rights Commission will help follow up the cases of Abdulraheem Al Murbati and Khalil Janahi, who were arrested in Riyadh in June 2003.
They were among a group of men suspected of being members of Al Qaeda. However, they are yet to be convicted of a crime.
“I will be travelling to Riyadh in the next few days to discuss the conditions of the two men with our Saudi counterparts,” BHRWS regional and international director Faisal Fulad said yesterday.
He said that both men are currently being held at a prison in Assir. Mr Al Murbati’s family earlier said they had been unable to locate him and hadn’t seen him for three weeks.
But the management of Al Haer prison south of Riyadh recently told the family that he had been transferred to another jail in the south-western province of Assir.
The BHRWS had earlier said the Saudi Human Rights Commission would request the Interior Ministry there to provide them with information about Mr Al Murbati.
Mr Al Murbati’s mother took her dying wish two months ago, to see him for the first time in five years, to the grave.
However, 76-year-old Mariam Abdulraheem Darwish was never told that her son was being held without charge in a Saudi prison the whole time. He, in turn, has not been told that his mother has died.
Ms Darwish believed the father-of-six had gone abroad to study for a PhD, but died on Friday without being given a chance to speak to him one last time. But relatives said Ms Darwish spoke about her “missing” son for hours before she died.
Case
National Detainees Comm-ittee president and Al Menbar MP Mohammed Khalid Mohammed is spearheading the family’s case in parliament after they complained that Mr Al Murbati was being mistreated.
His family is hoping he would be released soon after eight Bahrainis were released with the intervention of His Majesty King Hamad.
Mr Murbati was captured in his home in Madina Al Munawwara, Saudi Arabia.
The family moved back to Bahrain in the summer of last year after living in Riyadh for almost eight years.
His wife Somaya has been undergoing physiotherapy for the past four months to help restore some of the movement she lost as a result of a stroke.
rasha@gdn.com.bh
August 2nd, 2008 | Category: Abdulraheem Al Murbati, Activists, Bahrain, Khalil Janahi, Saudi Arabia
| 
Print This Post
| Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL
