Saudi blogger held in solitare without charges

Arab News:

The family members of the detained Saudi blogger Fouad Al-Farhan said yesterday that although Saudi authorities allowed Al-Farhan for the first time to make a telephone call from Jeddah’s Dahban Prison on Feb. 12 they would still like to continue to visit him.

Prior to the telephone call, the 32-year-old Saudi father of two has only been seen once by his father-in-law during a brief visit on Jan. 5. Al-Farhan told him that he was being kept in solitary confinement and subjected to questioning for 15 minutes a day. He has also not been informed of the charges against him. The family’s requests for further visits have so far been denied.

Speaking about Al-Farhan’s telephone call on Feb. 12, his wife told Arab News, “He talked to his mother briefly over the phone assuring her that he is all right and that he is not being harassed.” She added that he initially called home and that she was out with their children and so he telephoned his elderly mother, who lives in Taif.

She said although her husband spoke to his mother on the phone, they were still unaware of whether he was facing charges, whether he was still in solitary confinement and whether he had been given the right to legal access.

“Since he was talking to his mother for less than 10 minutes for the first time in more than two months, she was mainly concerned about his health. You know how mothers are,” she said.

Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Arab News earlier this month that there is no update on the Al-Farhan case other than the ministry’s previous statement that the blogger was being held for “interrogation for violating non-security regulations.”

Al-Turki would not clarify exactly why Al-Farhan was being held and whether it was in connection with his blog www.alfarhan.org. Al-Turki was unavailable for comment yesterday.

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Perhaps we should see about getting him transfered to Gitmo where he would get more humane treatment. The speech police in Saudi Arabia are worse than the sex cops over there. It is not like this guy was running a jihadi blog. If he were he probably would not be in jail.