Not Only Killed Him in Prison but Arrested Those Tweeting About Him Too
the prisons of Saudi Arabia
Abdullah Al-Hamid, a Saudi thinker, human rights activist and politician. He was born on July 12, 1950 and died on April 24, 2020 of a brain stroke in the prisons of Saudi Arabia, after he was arrested for the second time in March 2013 and sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of founding the Civil and Political Association.
Al-Hamid grew up in a middle-class family, and started his academic life in the village, but soon his family moved to Buraidah where he completed his studies and graduated from the Scientific Institute in 1967.
He read the Qur’an and learned the sciences of faith, hadith and Sirah at the hands of Buraida’s sheikhs. He also learned poetry and began publishing his poems while he was in high school; however he was not into literature as much as he enjoyed working in reform.
He read books for Mohamed Rashid Reda, Mohamed Al-Ghazali, Amin Al-Khuli and other thinkers of the Islamic awakening in the Arab and Islamic world, all of whom contributed to the formation of his early awareness.
Learning at the hands of his professor Abdelrahman Al-Basha during the university helped him shift to literature and language, so combined both the Religious sciences and the general culture with the Arabic language.
He got his master’s degree in 1974 and a PhD in 1978 from Al-Azhar University in Egypt in the field of literature and criticism.
His working life
He worked as a teacher at the National Religious School in Buraidah
Worked as a teacher in intermediate and secondary education at the religious scientific institute
He wanted to work in Riyadh to study higher education and have access to libraries, so he did administrative work at the College of Arabic Language, Imam Mohamed bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh 1394 AH, then as an assistant to the secretary of the public library, then as an editor in the college.
He was appointed as a lecturer in the literature department at the College of Arabic Language, then an assistant professor before he becomes an associate professor.
He mainly taught literature, criticism, texts and Arabic literature, especially Hadith and Comparative Literature, in postgraduate studies
He taught in the field of teaching Arabic for non-Arabs in Pakistan, and he studied after returning from there for a few years.
He realised the importance of teaching Arabic for non-Arabs, and established a project he supervised during his work as dean of the Institute for Teaching Arabic Language at the university, in which more than 50 academics participated.
His basic books for the student were published in more than fifty publications since 1411 AH and the deans of the institute continued his project.
He taught in the Sharia department of the College of Sharia and Arabic in Al-Qassim.
He worked as dean of the Institute for Teaching Arabic Language in Riyadh and during that time he was a member of the University Council, its Supreme Council and its Scientific Council as well.
He participated in creating the Human Rights Committee and was subsequently dismissed from the university.
He was arrested and detained several times before his last arrest in 2013, after the establishment of the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, and the issuance of a book on human rights between Light of Islam and the jurists of the tyranny, which was published after the establishment of the committee under the name (Human Rights in Islam).
Al-Hamid was subjected to deliberate medical negligence during his detention and the Saudi authorities ignored the appeals of the human rights organisations to release him until he died in April last year.
Arresting Mourners
The authorities of Saudi Arabia arrested those who shared condolences tweets including Abdel Aziz Al-Dakhil, Akl Al-Bahli and Sultan Al-Ajami.
Together for Justice organisation called for the immediate release of those detained without a charge, since condolences and mourning the dead was never a crime punishable by law!
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