News sources reported a hunger strike by a prominent human rights activist in a Saudi prison.
According to Arabi 21, “Mohammad Al-Qahtani”, a prominent human rights activist in Saudi Arabia, one of the founders of the “Hassam” association, started a hunger strike in a Saudi prison a few days ago.
In this regard, “Maha Al-Qahtani”, the wife of Mohammad Al-Qahtani said: Muhammad’s deprivation of his most basic rights led him to go on a hunger strike.
Maha added that any contact with my wife has been cut off and no information is available about her condition.
Mohammad al-Qahtani is a professor of economics who received his doctorate from Indiana University and previously worked at the Institute of Diplomatic Affairs at the State Department.
Al-Qahtani, 55, was arrested in March 2013 and sentenced to 10 years in prison and banned from traveling for another 10 years.
Al-Qahtani and Abdullah Hamed, activists of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, were sentenced in 2013 to 10 and 11 years in prison, respectively, but Hamed died in prison last April.
Al-Qahtani had said in public seminars that there were widespread human rights abuses in Saudi prisons.
The government of Riyadh, under the supervision of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has sharply increased the arrests and trials of dissidents and activists in the country since early 2017.
Since September 10, 2017, the Saudi government has arrested many elites, clerics, political opponents, civil activists, poets, and economic and academic experts, despite domestic and foreign opposition.