Riyadh slaps 10-year travel ban on Saudi human rights activist

Saudi Arabian authorities have slapped a 10-year travel ban on a prominent human rights activist and political dissident, who spent a decade in prison on charges of sedition after his group campaigned for a constitutional monarchy and elections in the Gulf kingdom.

The Prisoners of Conscience, an independent nongovernmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia, announced in a post on its official Twitter page that the sentence handed down to Abdulkarim al-Khader – a co-founder of the Saudi Political and Civil Rights Association (ACPRA) – was 10 years in prison followed by a travel ban for the same length of time. 

Khader served as ACPRA head after the imprisonment of two of his colleagues in March 2013.

Mohammed Fahd al-Qahtani and Abdullah Hamad were sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges that included sedition and damaging the country’s reputation.

Regime forces arrested Khader months later, and a Saudi Arabian court sentenced the human rights activist to ten years in prison. He was also barred from travel for a further 10 years.

ACPRA was declared an illegal organization after the March 2013 verdicts. It has accused the Riyadh regime of human rights abuses, including torture, jailing political activists and detaining people without trial or after the expiry of their sentences.

The group also represented the families of detainees that the government alleges are militants who planned attacks on state officials and foreign nationals.

Since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader in 2017, the kingdom has arrested hundreds of activists, bloggers, intellectuals, and others for their political activism, showing almost zero tolerance for dissent even in the face of international condemnation of the crackdown.

Muslim scholars have been executed and women’s rights campaigners have been put behind bars and tortured as freedom of expression, association, and belief continue to be denied by the kingdom's authorities.

Over the past years, Riyadh has also redefined its anti-terrorism laws to target activism.