Together for Justice condemns the continued detention of Dr. Mohammed Musa Al-Sharif, a Saudi preacher, academic, author, and pilot, who has been held since September 2017 as part of the wide crackdown launched by Saudi authorities against scholars, preachers, intellectuals, journalists, and independent voices.
Al-Sharif’s case is not an ordinary criminal case. It reflects the use of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary as a political instrument to punish peaceful opinion, independent religious work, academic activity, and humanitarian engagement. Instead of protecting rights and ensuring justice, the courts have been used to give a legal appearance to repression.
Dr. Mohammed Musa Al-Sharif was arrested during the September 2017 campaign, which targeted hundreds of public figures who were perceived as independent from the official state line. He was not known for violence or incitement. He was known for his religious and intellectual contributions, his writings on Islamic thought, history, and biography, and his involvement in charitable and relief work inside and outside Saudi Arabia.
Despite this, he was brought before the Specialized Criminal Court, a court repeatedly used by Saudi authorities to prosecute prisoners of conscience under security and terrorism-related frameworks. Following a secret and unfair trial that lacked transparency and basic fair trial guarantees, he was initially sentenced to five years in prison. In January 2023, the Court of Appeal increased the sentence to 13 years, without clear legal or substantive justification.
The escalation of his sentence on appeal is deeply alarming. Rather than correcting the violations that affected the original trial, the appeal process made the punishment harsher. This reflects a pattern of judicial retaliation, where the courts are not used to review injustice, but to intensify it.
According to available information, Al-Sharif faced more than twenty charges, including vague accusations such as “destabilizing the security of the kingdom” and “participating in relief activities inside and outside the country.” These charges expose how Saudi authorities use broad security language to criminalize peaceful religious, intellectual, and humanitarian activity.
Treating relief work as a charge, or portraying religious and academic engagement as a security threat, represents a dangerous abuse of the law. In this case, the law is not being used to protect society; it is being used to protect the authorities from any independent social, religious, or humanitarian role that exists outside state control.
Together for Justice stresses that Dr. Al-Sharif’s trial fell far below international standards of justice. He was reportedly denied the basic guarantees of a fair and public hearing, including adequate access to legal defence, regular communication with his lawyer and family, and the right to respond to clear and specific charges before an independent court.
His continued detention is also accompanied by serious concerns over his health and detention conditions. Reports indicating medical neglect and deteriorating health raise urgent questions about the authorities’ responsibility for his physical and psychological safety. Denying a detainee adequate medical care is not a procedural matter; it is a serious human rights violation.
The case of Mohammed Musa Al-Sharif forms part of a wider pattern of repression against scholars and preachers in Saudi Arabia since 2017. The authorities have used arbitrary detention, secret trials, sentence escalation, information blackouts, and medical neglect to silence figures whose intellectual, religious, or social influence remained independent from the official narrative.
Together for Justice holds the Saudi authorities fully responsible for the safety and well-being of Dr. Mohammed Musa Al-Sharif. His continued detention violates his right to liberty and security of person, his right to a fair trial, his right to freedom of expression, and his right to humane treatment in detention.
The organization calls for his immediate and unconditional release, the annulment of the unjust sentence issued against him, and the dropping of all charges linked to his opinions, religious work, academic activity, or humanitarian involvement.
Together for Justice also calls on the Saudi authorities to grant him immediate access to adequate medical care, allow regular contact with his family and legal counsel, and open an independent investigation into the circumstances of his arrest, trial, detention conditions, and the escalation of his sentence on appeal.
The continued imprisonment of Dr. Mohammed Musa Al-Sharif exposes the contradiction at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s official reform narrative. A state that claims to promote openness cannot imprison a preacher, academic, author, and pilot over peaceful views and humanitarian work, then present this repression as justice.
His case is a clear example of the crisis within Saudi Arabia’s politicized judiciary: courts are used as tools of punishment, humanitarian work is treated as suspicion, and independent thought is turned into a security offence.