Seven Saudis jailed for urging protests on Facebook: Human Rights Watch

Seven Saudis were jailed for urging protests on the fob.

Saudi Arabia has sentenced seven activists from its restive jap Province to prison phrases ranging from five to 10 years for posting messages on fob calling for anti-got protests, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Sunday.  The brand new York-based Total Rights staff urged European foreign coverage chief Catherine Ashton and other European officers meeting with Gulf counterparts and Saudi Arabia in Manama on Sunday to sentence the convictions.  Eastern Province has seen occasional protests by minority Shi’ite Muslims over the last two years towards alleged discrimination and negligence, which Riyadh denies. Web Posting Pro

Jailed for protests

“Sending people off to years in prison for peaceful fob posts sends a powerful message that there is no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks,” Joe Stork, HRW’s deputy center East director, mentioned in a remark.”If the European doesn’t elevate these circumstances with Saudi officials this weekend, its silence will appear to be craven compliance with the rights abuses of an authoritarian state.”Saudi Interior Ministry officers weren’t instantly available for remark. A Saudi-based human rights campaigner mentioned the activists had been all Shi’ite from the al-Ash governorate who had set up fob pages to urge individuals to stage demonstrations. “The sectarian state of affairs within the region made the sentences tricky and unreasonable,” he mentioned, talking on condition of anonymity.

Human Rights Watch said the seven men had been detained in September 2011 and had spent 12 months and a half in prison, sooner than being tried via a different tribunal set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases. The courtroom didn’t cost the men directly collaborating within the protests, HRW mentioned, somewhat with inciting “protests, illegal gathering, and breaking allegiance with the king.”Saudi Arabia abruptly moved in early 2011 to quell protests by using minority Shi’ites over the deployment of Saudi forces to a neighborhood of Bahrain to help crush anti-executive demonstrations there. A majority of Bahraini citizens are Shi’ites. However, discontent lingers with occasional protests in Japanese Saudi Arabia, where security forces killed at least 20 folks in 2011. On Thursday, many Shi’ites protested against the kingdom’s ruling al-Saud household at the funeral of a needed man shot lifeless by police. This incident ended months of relative calm in the Province.