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Mohammed al-Bajadi is a 36-year-old businessman, a father of two, and a human rights activist and founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA). He also founded the “Forum for Cultural Debate”, a group that formerly met weekly to discuss the promotion of human rights in Saudi Arabia.
He was previously arrested on 4 September 2007, apparently in connection with his human rights activities, but later released. He was rearrested on 21 March 2011, a day after he went to a protest outside the Interior Ministry in Riyadh. The protest was attended by scores of men and women who were calling for the release of their male relatives detained for years without charge or trial. Mohammed al-Bajadi had tweeted messages about the protest beforehand. He was initially sentenced to four years in prison, but his sentence was overturned and he is currently facing a retrial before the SCC.
He is a prisoner of conscience currently detained at al-Ha’ir prison in Riyadh where he says he has been ill-treated.
ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH A Hindu villager reacts while identifying the bodies of relatives found by government forces, that authorities suspected were killed by insurgents last month, in a mass grave near Maungdaw in the north of Myanmar's Rakhine state, September 27, 2017. The bodies of Hindu villagers are displayed by Myanmar authorities who say they were killed by Muslim insurgents, victims of a surge of violence in someone else's fight now playing their part in a propaganda war. Authorities found 45 Hindu villagers in mass graves in the north of Rakhine state this week, and the news has dominated Myanmar's media coverage of a new round of violence in old strife between the state's Buddhists and Muslims. The military flew a group of reporters from the city of Yangon to see the bodies laid out on the grass, and to hear from those who found them after information about the massacre filtered back from Hindus who have sought refuge from the violence in Bangladesh. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/File Photo SEARCH "POY ROHINGYA" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "REUTERS POY" FOR ALL BEST OF 2017 PACKAGES. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY. TEMPLATE OUT - RC16A61DF920
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