Film-Portrait of Dr. Saud Mukhtar Al-Hashimi, Human Rights Defender, Saudi Arabia

The following video was produced by the Alkarama Foundation to highlight the work of Dr. Saud Mukhtar Al Hashimi, co-laureate of the 2012 Alkarama Award for human rights defenders. Once acclaimed by the Saudi government for his humanitarian work with children in Iraq, he became the target of the very same authorities when he started calling for constitutional reform and greater civil and political rights in his country. Accused of criticizing the government, he was arrested by the intelligence services along with eight other members of the Reformer movement on 3 February 2007 in Jeddah. After four years in detention without any legal procedure, he was sentenced on 22 November 2011 to thirty years of imprisonment by the Riyadh Special Criminal Court after an unfair trial. He is still detained despite calls from the United Nations for his release.