HUMAN Rights and Saudi Arabia’s position regarding issues relating to the topic have been the subjects of much discussion and limited actions in recent years. In March 2004, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) was established in the Kingdom. It is the first nongovernmental human rights organization in Saudi Arabia to receive recognition from the local authorities and it cooperates with other international human rights organizations.
In the spring of this year, the NSHR inaugurated a website that is supposed to accept complaints submitted by e-mail and offer other online services and information. Of the complaints it has received, NSHR has had the most success resolving rights violations on a personal level. Problems that have been solved have been related to security, social, domestic and work issues. The entry to the website www.nshrsa.org claims that the site is available in Arabic, English and French. However, the French version of the site does not yet appear to be developed, and the English version of the site is not only out of date, but is also suffering from an erroneous refresh command, which has made the site unusable. This means that the online resources of the NSHR are only available to those who can make use of them in Arabic.
One important news item about human rights in the Kingdom was announced recently. In an op-ed, Al-Watan newspaper gave high marks to Saudi human rights activist and lawyer Abdulrahman Al-Lahem, who won Human Rights Watch’s 2008 Human Rights Defenders Award. The op-ed applauded Al-Lahem as an “important phenomenon in the modern history of Saudi Arabia.” It added that Al-Lahem’s work was “in Saudi courts, not elsewhere, and in many court cases he has enjoyed absolute support by King Abdullah.” It should be noted that earlier this year Al-Lahem won the International Human Rights Lawyer Award from the American Bar Association.
“Al-Lahem fights for the rights of his fellow citizens against arbitrary and unjust rulings,” remarked Christoph Wilcke, senior researcher on Saudi Arabia at Human Rights Watch. “He is at the forefront of the struggle to put into effect the kind of judicial reforms that King Abdullah has announced.”
Al-Lahem said the award will help promote human rights in Saudi Arabia. “This is as an honor to all those Saudis who have been engaged in human rights activities,” he told the Associated Press from Riyadh. Read more about it at www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/11/11/award-saudi-human-rights-lawyer.
If you would like to lend your support for the global quest for human rights, perhaps you could sign the “Every Human Has Rights” public pledge supporting the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which turned sixty this year. You’ll find the pledge at www.everyhumanhasrights.org.