Human rights watch demands Bush interfere to release Saudi opposition

Human Rights Watch organization concerned with defending human rights urged the American President George W. Bush to interfere and urge the Saudi crown prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz to release immediately three Saudi opposition figures detained by the authorities since more than one year because these persons had proposed a petition demanding the creation of a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia.

In a message addressed to Bush, one day before an expected visit to the Saudi crown prince, the organization called for dropping all accusations addressed to the three opposition members; they are Matrouk al-Faleh, Ali al-Dumeini and Abdulah al-Hamid. Also, they requested the release of their lawyer Abdul Rahman Allahem who was detained in November and to drop accusations against him.

A statement by the organization which takes the US as a headquarters said that the US president has to discuss the question of the three opposition members during his meeting with the crown prince in his farm in Texas today where the Middle East peace process, and oil prices are expected to be on the forefront.

The organization also demanded Bush to pressure the Saudi authorities to appoint women in the municipal councils whose half of their members were directly elected and the authorities to appoint the other half, as well as the pressure for the end of the death penalty in the Kingdom.