Detainee Dalal Al-Khalil – Collective Punishment Against the Family
Legal and human rights violations have been increasing against the Saudi detainee, Dalal Al-Khalil, as well as her family for many years for expressing their opinion under a regime that considers critical speech a punishable crime.
Dalal was arrested in September 2017, along with her husband, Ibrahim Aba Al-Khail, without reason, and after Saudi security forces stormed their home in Unayzah, Qassim region.
Dalal Al-Khalil, who is held in Tarfiya Prison in Al-Qassim, is a Saudi aid worker. Throughout her life, she was only concerned with collecting aid for the poor, distributing Ramadan baskets to the needy, and defending the freedom of her detained family members.
The story goes back to 2014, when the Saudi preacher “Diaa Al-Khalil”, Dalal’s sister, was arrested for raising a banner calling for the release of her three detained sons for their views.
The Saudi authorities considered Diaa’s demand for the freedom of her children to be a crime and an insult to the regime and later considered Dalal’s activity to release her sister as a contest against the state, and she was classified as an enemy of her homeland and arrested her September 2017.
According to informed sources, Dalal was subjected to psychological abuse, starvation, and medical neglect, like the rest of the detained Saudi women, and was interrogated for long hours in harsh conditions while depriving her of her most basic civil and legal rights that guarantee her a fair trial and humane conditions of detention.
Recently, Dalal’s health condition became critical and she needs special medical care to preserve her life.
We call on the Saudi authorities to immediately release the detainee, Dalal Al-Khalil, and the rest of the prisoners of conscience and warn that such measures will classify the Kingdom as a tyrannical, dictatorial kingdom that poses a threat to freedom of opinion and expression.
We also call on the Saudi regime to stop using the policy of collective punishment and retaliation against opponents by harassing their families and threatening them of arrest and security prosecution only for being a relative to the innocent detainees whom the regime claims are guilty.
