Saudi gov't urged to lift travel ban on lawyer

TRAVEL BAN: Human Rights Watch is urging action over restrictions on lawyer Abdurrahman al-Lahem. (AFP)

Human Rights Watch called on the Saudi government to lift a four-year-old travel ban on Saudi lawyer Abdurrahman al-Lahem, a winner of the 2008 Human Rights Defender award.

Lahem "stands for justice and the rule of law in Saudi Arabia," said Christoph Wilcke of the New York-based watchdog.

Barring him from foreign travel "highlights the severe and arbitrary limits to basic freedoms and fairness in the kingdom," he said.

Lahem, who has been barred from travel since 2004 "in connection with his calls for peaceful reform," is one of five winners of this year's Human Rights Defender award, HRW said, calling for an immediate lifting of the ban so that he can attend award ceremonies in London, Paris and Geneva in November.

HRW said the travel ban against Lahem and 21 other reform activists and critics of government policies violates Saudi Arabia's obligations under international law.

It said Lahem was the first lawyer to bring a criminal case against Saudi Arabia's religious police, which tries to enforce a strict Islamic moral code.

Last year he defended a female rape victim who was penalised by a Saudi court but was later pardoned by King Abdullah after an international uproar.

Earlier, he spent nine months behind bars for criticising the judiciary while defending three reformists who were jailed for demanding a constitutional monarchy. The four were pardoned by the Saudi monarch in August 2005.

This is the second US award won by Lahem this year. In April, he was selected for the International Human Rights Lawyer Award of the American Bar Association (ABA) but was unable to travel to Vienna in July to receive the prize in person.

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