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Waleed Abulkhair
2018 winner
Lawyer and human rights activist Waleed Abulkhair was named the 2018 International Writer of Courage by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Currently serving a 15-year prison sentence, Abulkhair is a founding member of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA) and has written for local and international media. Abulkhair has also represented fellow activists and writers, including former PEN Pinter winner Raif Badawi, in court.
In addition to holding the Saudi Arabian government to account for human rights abuses, Abulkhair also provided salons for liberal youth to discuss new ideas, after laws around public gatherings were tightened to prevent ‘unbelief’ and ‘deviant thought’. Discussing politics, religion, culture and human rights, he named his salon ‘samood’, meaning ‘resistance’ or ‘steadfastness’. In response to his salons, a judge and several clerics voiced opposition to Abulkhair and demanded that death be the punishment for allowing guests to speaking openly about opposition to religious conservatism.
Tried in Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court, Abulkhair was given a 15-year sentence (ten years executed and five years suspended), as well as a 15-year travel ban and a 200,000 Saudi Riyal fine for ‘undermining the regime and officials’, ‘inciting public opinion’ and ‘insulting the judiciary’ through his peaceful activism. Abulkhair refused to apologise in 2015 at the Court of Appeal, and declared he did not recognise the legitimacy of the Specialised Criminal Court. As a result, the judge tightened the sentence to 15 years executed.
More than four years later, Waleed Abulkhair remains imprisoned and reports suggest that he is being denied medication, books and post. Nevertheless, his voice still reaches far beyond the bars of his prison cell. As Abulkhair himself wrote in The Washington Post in 2012:
“I am unable to leave this country, but the sun of humanity shines upon me every day. I bask in its rays, gaining strength against the darkness of oppression. My voice and the voices of others like me shall reach the world, no matter how hard they try to silence us. We shall say, consistently and proudly: steadfastness.”
