Continued Detention of Mohammed Dulaim Al-Qahtani Puts His Life at Immediate Risk

Together for Justice warns of the grave danger facing detainee Mohammed Dulaim Al-Qahtani, whose continued imprisonment under deteriorating health conditions poses a direct threat to his life. Al-Qahtani, who is approaching the age of seventy, requires consistent medical care and special living conditions that are entirely absent inside Saudi prisons.

Al-Qahtani suffers from chronic heart disease, high blood pressure, and a loss of mobility on the left side of his body after a stroke he experienced in detention—an outcome directly linked to the harsh and substandard conditions that violate all international norms for humane treatment.

Since his arrest during the September 2017 crackdown against academics, thinkers, activists, and public figures, Al-Qahtani remains held in conditions unfit for any human being, let alone an elderly man with severe medical needs. Despite his rapidly worsening health, Saudi authorities refuse to release him and continue to place his life in further jeopardy.

In 2018, a Saudi court sentenced him to five years in prison, with the ruling stating that half the sentence could be suspended, followed by a ten-year travel ban, a ten-year prohibition on media engagement, and the closure of all social-media accounts. Instead of implementing even these already repressive measures, the authorities intensify the punishment: they extend his detention and escalate the sentence to 14 years and 6 months, with an identical travel ban—without providing any legal justification beyond the regime’s ongoing policy of retaliation against critics and prisoners of conscience.

Al-Qahtani’s health continues to decline severely. He now suffers from weakening heart function due to deliberate malnutrition and the total absence of proper medical care. His continued imprisonment represents a constant, life-threatening risk. Medical neglect remains one of the most alarming hallmarks of the Saudi regime’s treatment of detainees, as it consistently ignores repeated human-rights calls to improve prison conditions and uphold the rights of prisoners.

The deteriorating environment inside Saudi prisons raises concerns for all detainees, including those who are otherwise healthy. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and lack of medical oversight have turned detention centres into breeding grounds for disease, especially after the spread of COVID-19, to which authorities have failed to respond with the necessary preventative measures.

In light of these conditions, Together for Justice joins dozens of international human-rights organisations in calling on Saudi authorities to immediately release all prisoners of conscience, disclose the whereabouts of those subjected to enforced disappearance, and allow unrestricted communication with their families and legal representatives. The organisation also stresses the urgent need to end the systematic use of arbitrary detention, which continues to threaten the lives of countless detainees inside Saudi prisons.