Skyline International condemned the arrest of Omar Muqbel, a professor at the Faculty of Sharia at Al-Qassim University, in connection with a video published a few days ago expressing his opinion about the activities of the official entertainment authority.
The account of the prisoners of conscience announced yesterday - in a tweet on Twitter - that he confirmed the news of the arrest of Muqbel. Sheikh was arrested a few days ago after announcing in a sermon that recreational activities were deterring society from its identity.
Mokbel's arrest comes as "a continuation of arbitrary arrests carried out by the Saudi authorities against their opponents, in violation of international norms and conventions," the statement said.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guaranteed everyone the right to express their opinion without harassment.
The human rights organization stressed that "Saudi Arabia's attempts to promote itself as a democratic state open to development and international cooperation are collapsing once the continued suppression of freedoms and the arrest of dissidents."
The statement called on the international community and the countries that support Riyadh in particular to "consider the importance of Saudi Arabia's suppression of freedom of opinion, which requires stopping Riyadh's support that encourages it to continue its violations."
Sheikh Muqbel has a number of publications in the sciences of Sharia, especially the science of Hadith, and has been providing radio programs on the Koran, and worked as a preacher for many years.
In 2017, the kingdom began a campaign of arrests targeting prominent academic and religious names, including Sheikhs Salman al-Awda, Nasser al-Omar, Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omari, except for the arrest of poets and thinkers years ago for violating the ruling authority.
The authorities do not disclose the numbers of detainees on the basis of freedom of opinion in their prisons, and do not allow human rights institutions to visit detainees or see their conditions, which raises doubts.
Skyline was founded in April 2017 in Stockholm with the aim of monitoring violations of the rights of individuals, community, cultural and academic groups related to the expression of freedom of opinion, via social media.