[JURIST] The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention [official website] released a report [PDF] Thursday renewing its call for Saudi Arabia to release nine human rights activists jailed for participating in activities promoting and protecting human rights. Most of the nine activists had links with the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) [AI backgrounder, PDF], an independent human rights organization that campaigned for the rights of political prisoners and detainees in Saudi Arabia until it was forcefully closed by Saudi Arabia authorities in March 2013. The jailed men include a former judge and lawyer who was arrested without a warrant, an activist detained for circulating a petition calling for political reform and a man who was previously detained for two months in solitary confinement in al-Ha’ir prison. Stating that the arrests follow a “consistent pattern of arbitrary arrests and detention in Saudi Arabia,” the report further noted that the deprivation of liberty…violat[es] articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [and it forms] a part of both continued and recent persecution and crackdown on human rights activists in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has denied all allegations of arbitrary arrest, unfair detention, egregious prison conditions, and other human rights violations and has cited article 26 of the Kingdom’s Basic Law of Governance [text] as the sole legal recourse of the human rights prisoners. Saudi Arabia’s justice system has drawn international criticism for perceived human rights abuses in recent years. In January 2015 a Saudi Arabia judge sentenced prominent human rights lawyer Walid Abu al-Khair to an additional five years in jail [JURIST report] after he refused to show remorse for “showing disrespect” to authorities and creating an unauthorized association. In December 2014 a Saudi Arabia court ordered [JURIST report] the criminal cases against two women’s rights activists be transferred to a special tribunal for terrorism. The women were arrested for attempting to drive into the country from the UAE. In October 2014 a Saudi Arabia Court sentenced three lawyers to between five and eight years in prison for criticizing the justice system [JURIST report] on Twitter by accusing authorities of carrying out arbitrary detentions. Earlier that month Amnesty International issued a report claiming that Saudi Arabia persecutes rights activists and silences government critics [JURIST report], especially in the years since the Arab Spring in 2011. In July 2014 then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navy Pillay, expressed deep concern over the harsh sentences and detention of peaceful human rights advocates [JURIST report] in Saudi Arabia in recent months. In February 2014 JURIST Guest Columnist Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch argued that a new Saudi Arabian terrorism law was a vague, catch-all document [JURIST op-ed] that can—and probably will—be used to prosecute or jail anyone who criticizes the Saudi government and to violate their due process rights along the way.