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Rights group: 70-year-old Qatar man, son disappear in Saudi

August 22, 2019 at 12:24 am

A general view of a road near the Qatari side of the Abu Samrah border crossing with Saudi Arabia on 23 June, 2017 [AFP PHOTO/KARIM AFP/Getty Images]

Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee held Saudi authorities responsible for the lives of two Qatari nationals, Ali Nasser Ali Jarallah, 70, and his son Abdul Hadi, 17, and demanded information regarding their fate and their immediate release if they are detained.

The Qatari Human Rights Committee said in a statement, Wednesday, that it had received information from reliable sources, regarding the enforced disappearance Jarallah and Hadi in Saudi Arabia. The information noted that the Qatari citizen and his son entered to Saudi Arabia under a family permit, on Thursday 15 August.

“The information indicates that the Qatari citizen and his son were forcibly disappeared on Sunday (18 August) in the eastern area of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities arrested them and hidden in an unknown location,” the statement pointed out.

The statement condemned the enforced disappearance of the Qatari citizen and his son “which violates all international and regional conventions, especially Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 14 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, as it clearly violates these two people’s rights to freedom and security.”

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The Qatari Committee expressed concern about this enforced disappearance, especially as the Saudi authorities recently adopted a policy of enforced disappearance of a number of Qatari citizens due to the political crisis. It also called on the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Panel on Enforced Disappearance and the UN Human Rights Council to immediately intervene to stop these severe and systematic violations against Qatari citizens.

Qatar’s National Human Rights Committee also recalled the efforts of international humanitarian organisations that led to a happy ending for the family of 65-year-old Qatari citizen Mohsen Saleh Al-Karbi, who was detained in Riyadh and returned to Doha after finally been released.

Al-Karbi was freed after being accused, according to Saudi and Emirati media, of spying for Qatar, after his arrest on 21 April 2018, at the Shahan border crossing between Yemen and Oman after returning from a visit to his relatives.

Qatari student Abdul Aziz Saeed Abdullah has been detained in Al-Ha’ir prison, south of Riyadh, since July 2018, without any charges, and was about to graduate from the College of Shariah and Islamic Studies at Umm Al-Qura University in 2018.