PRESS RELEASE:

Nairobi, May 26, 2008
MUSLIM HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM DEMANDS GoK ACTION ON KENYAN DETAINED IN SAUDI ARABIA.

The Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF) is demanding action by the government of Kenya on behalf of a Kenyan national detained without trial in Saudi Arabia since September 2007.

The Kenyan Abdullahi Adan Sheikh Ali, 23, a fourth year student at Madina University was detained at Jeddah Airport by immigration officials who told him they wanted to question him about his visa. Efforts by his family in Kenya to establish his whereabouts only bore fruits in December last year when he called to say that he was being held in a jail in Riyadh.

After the MHRF wrote on October 11, last year to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nairobi regarding the missing man the ministry replied on October 17 2007 saying it was working closely with its embassy in Riyadh to establish the whereabouts of Mr. Ali. And In reply to another letter on January 17,this year the ministry confirmed that the Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh had been informed by the Saudi authorities that Mr. Ali was indeed being held by them "and under investigation."

In a letter to the Permanent Secretary Mr. Thuita Mwangi today, MHRF Chairman Al-Amin Kimathi said the forum was deeply perturbed by the Ministry's satisfaction with the explanation by the kingdom that Mr. Ali had been placed on "a stop list" as the forum had been informed by an official at the ministry, which meant his was "a highly confidential matter that the Saudi authorities could not reveal why and where they were holding him".

Said Mr. Kimathi: It is deeply perurbing to learn that the Kenya government is content to accept that kind of explanation about its own citizen and fail to press the issue any further. We pray that the government has not consented, as it appears to have done, to the subject's detention without trial considering the fact that Kenya is signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which, in article 9, prohibits arbitrary detention".

Kimathi said the Mr. Ali risked permanent disappearance and was exposed to possible torture and inhumane treatment."These and the detention-without-trial are gross violations of his human rights which the government must stand up against and be seen to protect its citizens as it is its constitutional obligation", he added.

The forum said Ali was entitled to consular visitation and the Kenya government through its Riyadh embassy ought to ensure that was granted. Kenya was also entiltled to an explanation about the charges and the circumstances under which the subject was being held, MHRF said adding that the government"cannot be content with such a vague explanation like the one said to have been provided by the Saudis"

MHRF urged the government of Kenya to invoke international law and diplomatic conventions while observing its constitutional obligations to its citizens to ensure due process and a just trial for Mr. Ali "if he is held for any offense or his release and repatriation to Kenya if otherwise".The forum also told the government to provide legal counsel to the detainee as had been done last year to a daughter of a former Kenyan MP when she faced the death penalty for alleged drug trafficking in Malaysia.

Ali who hails from Nairobi's Eastleigh area is married to a Kenyan, Hafsa Sheikh Ali with whom he has two children. His huge family resides in Nairobi.

Contact MHRF
Telephone +254 20-4454445 Nairobi Cell +254 721 324 186