Isa Marzouq Alnakhefi is a social and human rights activist who spent nearly two years in prison in Mecca due to his involvements in human rights activism and other social issues.
He is known for his role in detecting cases of financial corruption, defending victims violated by government authorities. Which made him a subject of frequent harassment and lead to his suspension from his work preventing him from further employment with the government authority. He became well known again when the Saudi Arabian government established the buffer zone on the Saudi-Yemeni border after the war on the Houthis, which caused the displacement of twelve inhabitants of those areas. The Saudi authorities have promised to compensate and accommodate those who were affected by the war. However, these promises have gone unheeded and they are still not allowed to return to their villages even to date of writing this article. The people responded to this by staging sit-ins and protesting repeatedly to demand their return to their land and to be paid the compensation that was promised by the authorities. The role of Alnakhefi has been prominent during this stage, where he highlighted the tragedy of the citizens to the media, which followed them through the sit-ins and protests providing data and motivation to highlight their case, until he was arrested in August 2012. Alnakhefi has been charged inaccurately and was accused of encouraging people to challenge the king and question his validity of oath of allegiance. He has also been accused of challenging the judicial authority, ridiculing and being sceptical towards the authorities’ senior scientists and accusing state institutions of negligence in their performance of their duties. He is also accused of spreading sedition among the people, arranging demonstrations and incitement by preparing prejudice public order. He was sentenced to three years in prison in addition to eight months that was added after the sentencing. Also he has a travel ban for four years after his release from prison. During interrogation he was exposed to psychological and physical torture where he complained of being insulted with obscenities. He was also placed in solitary confinement for thirteen days, as well as being prevented from wearing any clothes other than his underwear while keeping the air conditioner on, leaving him cold. Following the mistreatments he went on hunger strike for more than twenty days. It was posted on his Twitter account last month what he was being subjected to in prison from mistreatments, which he was later punished for. Meanwhile visits from relatives are continuously being rejected and when his relatives do get the chance to visit they are faced with deliberate mistreatments.
ALQST for Human Rights organisation, call on the Saudi authorities to respect the human rights and to stop these repeated violations against all activists, including Isa Marzouq Alnakhefi. ALQST emphasis that the activities carried out by Alnakhefi are legitimate. ALQST call for action to put pressure on the authorities to urge the authorities to abolish Alnakhefi’s sentence and drop all charges against him and call for his immediate release without any conditions.
