Gulf activists start their campaign to release reformers
Saudi Arabia-Gulf, Politics, 10/5/2004

The lawyer of one of the three Saudi reformers who have been tried in the Kingdom over the call to founding a constitutional monarchy and using western expressions in their effort to make political changes in the country, Khaled al-Mteiri, announced that the judge in Riyadh court, Muhammad Bin Khanin, postponed the three men trial session after they refused to answer accusations addressed to them in a close door session.

Al-Mteiri said that the accused persons: Matrouk al-Faleh, Ali al-Dumeini and Abdullah al-Hamid "were forced by the security men to enter the court hall." He added "When they were asked about the case they refrained and abstained from answering." He stressed that the "judge said in open that the trial is secret and that permitting to relatives inside the court is an exception." He also indicated that it is the right of the judge, according to the law, to prevent audience from attending the trail and this will be then in the interest of the trial process."

A source at the defendant commission for the verdicts said earlier that the judge "postponed the session after the accused men refused to answer his question because of the secrecy of the session." No new date for the trial was set.

Meantime, Gulf political activists are preparing to launch a campaign for collecting signatures calling on the Saudi King to release the three reformers, according to one of those activist Naser al-Abdali. Al-Abdali said " by the end of this week a campaign of collecting signatures appealing King Fahd to release the three reforms will start." He said that the campaign comes on the occasion of the approaching month of Ramadan.

Al-Abdali, who is the chairman of the "the Kuwaiti society for democratic progress" said that "coordination was made with political activists from other Gulf states" describing the campaign as purely humanitarian.

Previous Stories:
  British lawyer calls for the detention of the Saudi minister of the interior   (9/10/2004)
  Trial of three Saudi reformers postponed   (8/24/2004)
  Saudis demand the release of three reformers   (8/18/2004)
  Amnesty International criticizes the human rights violations in the Gulf states   (6/23/2004)
  Prince Nayef: terrorism to be on top agenda of GCC interior ministers in Muscat   (10/7/2002)

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