Campaign on to win freedom for Bahraini held in Saudi Arabia
A Bahraini member of parliament has urged people to sign a petition that would appeal to His Majesty King Hamad to intervene with the Saudi authorities to release a Bahraini national who is being detained in Saudi Arabia.
A Bahraini member of parliament has urged people to sign a petition that would appeal to His Majesty King Hamad to intervene with the Saudi authorities to release a Bahraini national who is being detained in Saudi Arabia.
More than 1,000 people have already signed the petition to release Mohammed Saleh Ali, 33, detained by the Saudi authorities on King Fahd Causeway, the only land route between the two countries, on July 22 while he was travelling with a friend to perform Umrah. He is suspected of having links to religious extremists, MP Mohammed Khalid said.
The MP was speaking following a meeting of a committee in charge of following up on the case of Ali.
The committee comprises representatives from three local groups; Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS), Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) and Democracy and Human Right Watch Society. The committee is led by the MP who has been lobbying to win Ali's freedom.
A spokesman of the BHRS told Gulf News last week his group had contacted the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking for its intervention on behalf of Ali.
He also said the ministry was asked to allow Ali's family or a lawyer to visit the man. "We feel Ali's family has the right to visit him and learn what he is charged with," Salman Kamaluddine said.
Ali's arrest came amid the recent Saudi crackdown on religious extremists, blamed by the government of being behind last May triple suicide bombings in residential complexes in Riyadh which left more than 30 people dead including scores of expatriates.
"So far we don't know anything about his detention conditions. This is a very sensitive issue for the Saudis and we don't want to jeopardise their efforts to protect this country," added Kamaluddine.
