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A Saudi court ordered the arrest of an eminent rights lawyer Waleed Abulkhair, who was on trial for defying the ruler and insulting the authorities in the conservative kingdom, according to his wife Samar Badawi. Abulkhair was on bail for organizing unapproved meetings for reformists when he went to the fifth hearing of his trial on Tuesday at a court in Riyadh. Badawi said she had not heard from her husband since Abulkhair called her and said he would be switching his phone off as he entered a closed-hearing courtroom.
“I found out today (Wednesday) from the court that the judge has ordered his arrest and he has been sent to Hair prison”, she added. She had gone to the prison she was told where her husband was being kept, but was prevented from seeing him without an interior ministry permit. “I went to the interior ministry and they told me to return in two weeks to get a permit”, she said.
According to a tweet he posted on Tuesday, Abulkhair is on trial for “defying the ruler, insulting authorities, forming two organizations, and incitation”. No official reason has been giver for his latest arrest. Abulkhair already faces other legal proceedings related to his activism. Last October, he was handed out a three-month imprisonment sentence for “insulting judiciary” and signing a petition which criticized the authorities over two years ago. He was briefly held in jail soon after for helping set up an “unauthorized” meeting place for pro-reform activists but was let go on bail.
In February 2011, Abulkhair had signed two petitions demanding political reform in Saudi Arabia. In March 2012, Saudi authorities banned him from travelling to the USA, where he was scheduled to attend a State Department-organized forum. In June 2012, he was accused of “disrespecting the judiciary… contacting foreign organizations and signing a petition demanding the release of detainees”, some of them held as suspected terror links, his wife said back then.
