On July 13, Saudi human rights defender and prisoner of conscience Abdulaziz al-Shubaily was conditionally released from prison after serving an eight-year prison sentence. Despite his release, he remains banned from travelling and using social media.
Abdulaziz al-Shubaily was a founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), an organization that helped families of long-term untried detainees. Before it was disbanded, ACPRA was one of Saudi Arabia’s few independent human rights organizations.
From 2012, the Saudi Arabian authorities began intensifying their crackdown on human rights defenders. ACPRA was among the organizations targeted, and Abdulaziz al-Shubaily was repeatedly interrogated because of his work. He was put through an unfair trial and found guilty on bogus charges. One of the charges against him concerned sharing information with Amnesty International that was then used in two of Amnesty’s reports.