Political party criticises Gulf detention campaigns

A Kuwaiti political party has denounced the detention campaigns being carried out by governments belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council. Al-Omah Party said that “reformers, scholars, politicians, writers and social media activists” in the UAE and Saudi Arabia “are being detained without charges or trials.”

This, said the party’s statement, is “a measure amongst other measures of a security policy brokered by the USA and planned by the remnants of the Arab regimes ousted by the wave of Arab revolutions.” The purpose is to pre-empt and undermine any popular movement calling for freedom and dignity in the Gulf States.

Many prominent scholars and reformers have been detained in Saudi Arabia, the statement added, including the leader of Al-Omah Party, Ahmed al-Ghamedi. The same persecution, it is claimed is going on in the UAE.

“People are being detained for calling for political reform, criticising the oppression and injustice of the authorities, calling for the right of the people to choose their rulers and calling for a peaceful end to family autocracy and control over wealth and oil,” the statement said. “Such calls are consistent with freedom of expression and freedom of speech.”

The authorities in the states in question, it is claimed, are aware that “people power” can protect societies from the instruments of repression and hinder security violations “against freedom and dignity”, hence the campaign of arrests.