Waleed Abulkhair

Waleed Sami Abulkhair (وليد أبوالخير; born 17 June 1979) is a Saudi Arabian lawyer and human rights activist, and the head of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA) organization.

He is the first activist to be prosecuted by the Terrorism Law.

In 2007 Waleed Abulkhair began his career in the legal profession, where he joined lawyer Essam Basrawi and worked in his office.

In the same year, Waleed—along with several other activists—launched a statement entitled Features of a Constitutional Monarchy, which explicitly demanded the ruling family of Saudi Arabia change the current regime of absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

This led the Saudi Authorities to stop funding his Graduate studies for master's degree, so he studied and finished his master's degree on his own expenses.

Waleed Abulkhair defended a number of clients in the case of Jeddah reformers, including Dr. Mossa bin Mohammed Al-Qarni, Dr. Saud al-Hashimi and Dr. Abdul Rahman al-Shumaimri, who were arrested in February 2007.

He is the founder, in 2008, of Monitor for Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA), an independent human rights organization.

In December of that year the Monitor site was blocked, resulting in it being rebuilt on social networking site Facebook.

In 2009, he got his master's degree in Islamic law from Alyarmook University in Jordan after defending his thesis (Affinities and Differences in the Evidences and Reasons and Judgements: a Consolidating Applicable and Comparative Study).

The Thesis was supervised by Dr. Abdul-Jaleel Zuhair Thamrah.

Waleed has memorized the Quran and got a license from Shaikh Obaid Allah AlAfqani and was approved by the Teaching Board of the Holy Mosque in Madinah.

He filed a lawsuit on June 22, 2009 against the Interior Ministry over the detention of his clients without charge.

He was also hired by the British Embassy in Saudi Arabia to defend one of its nationals detained by Saudi authorities.

Abulkhair was one of those who signed a famous petition called “Toward a State of Rights and Institutions”.

Demanding the release of detainees who he considered to be political prisoners, Waleed organized what he called "the first hunger strike campaign in Saudi Arabia for human rights", lasting for 48 hours.

Due to this, he was invited in Mexico City to a summit named the “Alliance of Youth Movement”.

However, in May 2009, this page was also blocked.

He signed other two more petitions in 2011, “Towards a State of Rights and Institutions”, the “National Declaration for Reform”, which called for radical reforms in the political system, and coincided with waves of protests against Arab regimes.

In 2012, Waleed registered and licensed the Monitor at the Canadian Ministry of Labor.

Thus, MHRSA became the first Saudi human rights organization to be licensed abroad.

Waleed Abulkhair then sent a letter appealing to King Abduallah to allow recognition of the organization in Saudi Arabia.

He was arrested on 15 April 2014, and was sent to al-Ha'ir Prison while awaiting prosecution.

On 6 July 2014, Abulkhair was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Specialized Criminal Court, (10 years executed and five suspended) and a travel ban for another 15 years, in addition to a fine of 200,000 riyals (US$0).

On 12 January 2015, the case returned to the Court of Appeals, after which the judge requested increasing the previous sentence, because Abulkhair refused to apologize.

Thus, the judgment was tightened to 15-year executed.

In response, Abulkhair prayed for God's victory and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Specialized Criminal Court.

Abulkhair is incarcerated in the Dhahban Central Prison in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a facility used to hold high-profile political prisoners, as well as members of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

In 2015 November, while Abulkhair was still in prison, he and Samar Badawi agreed to divorce for personal reasons.

Waleed holds two bachelor's degrees: one in law, which he earned with the highest distinction; and a second degree specializing in Arabic language.

In 2018, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, together with Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohammad Fahad al-Qahtani for "their visionary and courageous efforts, guided by universal human rights principles, to reform the totalitarian political system in Saudi Arabia."

Waleed was born in Jeddah, west of Saudi Arabia.

He comes from a Hejazi family of judges and Imams of the Holy Mosque.

Waleed's grandfather Mohammed Saeed AbuAlkhair was one of the Jeddah commissioners who signed the agreement with King Abdulaziz under the condition that ruling Hejaz must be self-governing under the guidance of the Quran and prophets sayings and the four leading Imam's guidance.

Waleed's mother, Elhaam Al Abbasi, also come from a well known Hejazi family.

His mother had a huge impact on his character, and continues to be a strong influence on his personality.

Waleed's oldest uncle, Yahya Abulkhair, is a retired professor specializing in Geology.

He taught at King Saud University.

Waleed's younger uncle, Sameer Abulkhair, was a retired Major General working for the border guards sector in the Ministry of Interior in Medina city.

Waleed married Samar Badawi.

After two months of his detention, she gave birth to their daughter, Joud.