Oman

Omani authorities arrested El-Mamaari two days after he joined an environmental protest calling attention to toxic emissions caused by facilities in the port of Sahar.

Judicial proceedings started on 5 September 2013 against Samir Al-Zakwani, the editor of the local English-language weekly The Week, in connection with an article entitled “The Outsiders” about gays in Oman, which has been widely criticized in the sultanate, especially on social networks.

Omani authorities should immediately drop charges against the human rights activist and blogger Saeed Jaddad for “undermining the status and prestige of the state” and stop harassing him, says Human Rights Watch.

The security forces arrested Ziab El-Amri, a blogger and activist, on 20 May 2013 after the Omani special task force unit besieged his house located in Senaw in the Modabi province north of Oman.

One Omani human rights defender and another blogger have both gone missing since being summoned for investigation by the Omani intelligence services.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said yesterday pardoned all the activists, netizens and human rights defenders who have been convicted on charges of defamation, cyber-crime or illegal assembly in recent months.

As Oman frees eight activists jailed for illegal assembly, it arrests two others without legal justification.

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies reports on attacks carried out by the governments of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Oman against human rights defenders for cooperating with the UN.

Five Omani netizens convicted of cyber-crime and insulting the sultan have been handed down a supreme court ruling upholding one-year jail terms and 400-euro fines on 25 February 2013.

A total of 23 detainees who regard themselves as prisoners of conscience are currently refusing to eat. Six who are in a critical condition were taken to various hospitals in the capital Muscat.

Apart from their geography and shared culture, what Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain have in common is aging authoritarian leadership coupled with a young, Internet-savvy populace: an obvious recipe for tension.

On 16 January, the Omani appeal court handed down prison sentences to eight writers and bloggers for lèse-majesté and cyber crimes. Reporters Without Borders notes that 28 netizens were convicted in the month of December alone, against a background of social and economic grievances that have alarmed the government.

Oman has been the site of a major crackdown since the end of May 2012, which has included arrests of dozens of writers, human rights defenders, judges, and pro-democracy activists.

Blogger Mokhtar bin Mohamed El-Hana’y was sentenced to a year in prison, accused of insulting the Sultan and violating Oman’s information technology law.

Six activists accused of information technology crimes, insulting the Sultan and undermining the state have been sentenced to up to a year and half in jail.

Eleven activists have been handed down prison sentences by a court in Muscat, Oman for exercising their right to free expression and peaceful assembly.