RIYADH: Saudi Arabian political rights activist Mohammed Al Bajadi was released from prison yesterday, other activists said on Twitter, two years after being detained and a year after he was sentenced to four years in jail.
Bajadi, a founding member of the banned Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), was sentenced to four years in prison last year and two other founders were sentenced to prison terms of more than 10 years in March.
The fate of human rights activists is closely watched in Saudi Arabia, an ally of the West, after international rights agencies said the authorities stepped up the use of arrests, prison terms and travel bans to end dissent in the past two years.
The Twitter feed of one of the men sentenced in March, Mohammed Fahd Al Qahtani, which is now run by other members of ACPRA, confirmed yesterday that Bajadi had been freed, as did the Twitter feed of Bajadi’s brother. It was not clear under what conditions, if any, he had been released, days before the end of the holy month of Ramadan when rulers traditionally show mercy to some prisoners. Other activists have in the past been released only after signing pledges not to resume their campaigns.
REUTERS
