On 16 April 2012, Yemeni Human Rights Defender Mr Ali Al Dailami was stopped, threatened and harassed for four hours by national security officers at Sanaa airport on his arrival from Cairo where he had attended a human rights conference.
Ali Al Dailami, a prominent human rights defender, is the General Co-ordinator of the Yemeni Organisation for the Defence of Rights and Democratic Freedoms.
On his arrival at Sanaa airport Ali Al Dailami was held by members of the national security and subjected to interrogation in a provocative manner during which it was alleged that his name was included on a list of those wanted by the Yemeni police since 2006. He was held for up to four hours at the airport harassed and threatened with punishment which the security officers did not specify. His passport was confiscated, but when he showed the security officer a card indicating his human rights work, he was given his passport back. Shortly afterwards, however Ali Al Dailami’s passport was again confiscated and he was accused of leaving Yemen illegally, despite having an exit visa stamped on his passport when he passed through the same airport on 11 April 2012 on his way to Cairo.
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Stand with IFEX member Nabeel Rajab, President of BCHR, as he protests on 3 April outside the Ministry of Interior’s headquarters which houses the main prisoners’ hospital where his friend and colleague Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja is currently being held.
REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, renowned human rights advocate and past president of IFEX member the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) is entering his ninth week of a hunger strike in prison which he began on 8 February to protest a life sentence for peacefully expressing his right to freedom of expression. He pledged to continue his protest until “freedom or death.” His life is now in serious danger and there may be irreparable damage to his health.
Sign this petition, started by BCHR President Nabeel Rajab, calling for the immediate release of Al-Khawaja. The international community must act together now to save Al -Khawaja’s life.
HELP US SPREAD THE WORD:
- Tweet this page, using the hashtag #savealkhawaja
- Post this to your Facebook page, asking your friends to join our campaign
- Change your profile picture to the photo above, including a link to the petition
- Tweet a message to the Bahrain Ministry of the Interior at @moi_bahrain on Twitter
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The Egyptian press has recently published a news report that a regional conference on the capital punishment in the Middle East and North Africa was held in Alexandria in the period of 20-21 September 2010 and that the conference was organized by the Swedish Institute in Alexandria.
We pay tribute to the efforts made by the Swedish Institute in Alexandria which took the initiative to hold such a conference on the death penalty and to emphasize the need that it should be curbed. It is noteworthy that the Swedish Institute has also held a workshop from 12-14 May 2008 in which we participated as an Arab Coalitions against the Death Penalty. Nonetheless, we would like to express our extreme regrets for the overlooking by the Swedish Institute and its lack of interest in the continuous and systematic action and efforts which the Arab alliance made with existing Arab entities concerned about the opposition to the capital punishment in each of Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Mauritania.
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