The life of Safar Al-Hawali is at Risk
The elderly preacher Safar Al-Hawali will soon complete three years in prison amid very poor detention conditions despite his old age and deteriorating health condition, which requires urgent medical care instead of detention and abuse.
Safar Al-Hawali, is a modest, merciful and person who enjoys a good sense of humor, as well as braveness in expressing an opinion and criticizing the authoritarian policies of the successive Saudi regimes.
He was arrested in July 2018 for publishing a book criticizing the economic policies of the current Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, the role of the UAE and Sisi in Egypt in serving the Zionist entity.
Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali was born in 1955 in Hawala, the village of Sinan in Al-Baha, southern Saudi Arabia. He studied Sharia at the Islamic University, after which he completed his postgraduate studies in the Department of Faith and Contemporary Doctrines from Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah Al-Mukarramah, where he obtained a master’s and doctorate degrees with first honors.
Mohammed bin Salman was not the first to arrest Safar al-Hawali. He was arrested twice before in 1994 and in 1999, for opposing the Saudi regime and calling for reform.
In 2018, with the arrest campaign against intellectuals, scholars, and academics, Al-Hawali was arrested with three of his sons and taken to an unknown location for a while, before being transferred to a hospital in a dangerous condition, as he suffers from Kidney failure and pelvic fracture, for which he needs adequate and urgent medical care.
According to close sources, Al-Hawali has been deprived of health care since the first moments of his arrest. It is worth noting that the Saudi authorities, despite all the demands and pleas, are still hiding information on the detention conditions of political detainees who suffer from inhuman detention conditions, degrading treatment and constant torture.
Regardless of the opinions and ideas that Sheikh Safar al-Hawali embraces, there is no justification for imprisoning him, depriving him of his freedom and depriving him of all his basic rights.
Opposing the regimes is not a crime. Expressing an opinion is not a crime. On the contrary, it is a right guaranteed to every human being.
The Saudi authorities should release the preacher Safar Al-Hawali immediately due to his deteriorating health condition, as well as releasing all prisoners of conscience, especially since many of them are now threatened with death due to the widespread deliberate medical negligence in a Saudi prison.
