8,000 Gulf citizens' signatures to release reformer; five Islamists arrested

The Saudi Arabian ministry of the interior announced yesterday that one police man was killed and other nine injured, and five Islamists were detained in a fire exchange that took place on Tuesday evening between the security forces and gunmen to the north of Saudi Arabia.

The ministry explained that the security forces confronted fire opened by suspect persons fortified in a house including two members of the so-called 'misled group'. The fire was exchanged in al-Aneiza city, 370 Km to the north of Riyadh and resulted according to a statement by the ministry in "killing one police man and wounding 8 of his colleagues, four of them are of medium injuries while the other four are slightly wounded." The statement said that five men were arrested, two of them are wanted and one of the two is strongly injured. The statement continued that "upon inspecting the suspected house, machine guns, weapons and mortars, one computer and various communications means were seized."

On the other hand, the Kuwaiti political activist Nasser al-Abdali announced yesterday that a petition signed by thousands of Gulf activists calling for the release of the three Saudi reformers Ali al-Dumeini, Matrouk al-Faleh and Abdullah al-Hamid, detained since 8 months, were sent to the Saudi King Fahd Bin Abdul Aziz several days ago.

Al-Abdali said "we have collected 8,000 signatures most of them are in Kuwait and an appeal was sent in a message to King Fahd three days before Eid al-Fiter." He added that the activists did not receive any appeal so far.

Gulf activists started a campaign to collect signatures demanding the release of the three reforms with the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan on October 15. The organizers were planning to collect 100,000 signatures. But al-Abdali said they had decided to send the appeal during the holy month of Ramadan. The signatures were collected from the Gulf Cooperation Council 6 members states, excluding Saudi Arabia.