Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)

Civil society groups ask ECOSOC to reconsider granting valued press freedom group and IFEX member, The Committee to Protect Journalists, consultative status at the UN.

This week, women’s rights activist and blogger Ghada Jamsheer received a one-year prison sentence on appeal, as leading human rights defender and GCHR Founding Director Nabeel Rajab’s detention was extended and human rights defender and writer Abdulnabi Al-Ekry was banned from travel.

On 6 June 2016, human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja and her two children, Jude and Abdulhadi Jr, arrived in Denmark, where she is a dual citizen, after she was forced to leave the country by authorities in Bahrain.

In a hearing which took place on 29 May 2016, the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh sentenced Al-Shubaili to eight years in prison followed by another eight years of a travel ban to start after he serves his sentence.

On 31 May 2016, human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja was finally released from prison, seven weeks after Bahrain’s Foreign Minister promised to free her.

On 18 April 2016, Kuwaiti security forces arrested Bedoon human rights activist Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli. Human rights defender Rana Al-Sadoun, who was arrested two days previously, has since been released from prison on bail.

Eleven regional and international civil society groups have penned a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to press for the release of all detained rights defenders across the Gulf region who are imprisoned solely due to their peaceful and legitimate human rights work.

Since his detention, many human rights groups have campaigned for his release. On 21 April 2015, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his detention a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and called for his release, yet the Syrian authorities refuse to free him.