* Four Saudi rights activists face criminal charges
* Six foreign rights groups request access to trials
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Aug 1 (Reuters) - International human
rights groups have asked Saudi Arabia for permission to observe
the court cases of four rights activists in a country they have
accused of conducting unfair trials.
Saudi lawyer Walid Abu al-Khair, writer Mikhlif al-Shammari,
and professors and rights advocates Abdullah al-Hamid and
Mohammad al-Qahtani face charges that include tarnishing the
reputation of the state, cooperating with international rights
organisations and encouraging protests, according to court
documents seen by Reuters.
Two of the six groups seeking access, Human Rights Watch and
Amnesty International, have in the past criticised the
conservative Islamic monarchy for holding trials they say are
unfair, and have accused it of jailing political prisoners.
A Saudi Justice Ministry spokesman did not respond to
requests for comment on the trials or on the rights groups'
request to monitor them, but the Interior Ministry says there
are no political prisoners in the kingdom.
"These individuals have, over the past years, advocated
greater respect for the human rights of people in Saudi Arabia
... They now find themselves facing criminal charges stemming
from their human rights activities," said the letter sent to
Justice Minister Mohammed al-Issa.
The rights groups added that they wanted to watch the trials
of the four activists to learn how the conservative Islamic
monarchy handles such cases.
Judges in Saudi Arabia have the right to bar observers from
the court and requests by human rights groups to visit the
kingdom have been denied in the past, Abu al-Khair said.
The trial of one of the rights advocates, Shammari, is in a
specialised criminal court set up to handle security-related
cases. Such trials are closed to the public and only selected
local media and the government-linked Human Rights Commission
are allowed access by the Interior Ministry to some of the
sessions.
Human rights lawyers have complained that they are prevented
from meeting their clients.
The other four groups that signed the letter are Front Line
Defenders, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies,
Alkarama, which is a Switzerland-based organisation focusing on
Arab countries, and the Gulf Center for Human Rights.
In April a court in the Saudi capital Riyadh sentenced
Mohammed al-Bajadi, a prominent rights campaigner, to four years
in prison.
Bajadi had already been held for a year without charge after
he voiced support for families protesting outside the Interior
Ministry, calling for the release of their jailed relatives.
In November a Saudi court sentenced 17 men, most of them
activists, academics and lawyers, to prison terms of up to 30
years for sedition and other offences, including charges of
aiding Islamist militants.
Amnesty International described the trial as "grossly
unfair". Saudi Arabia rebutted the accusations, saying they were
based on "inaccurate information" and expressing a commitment to
"human rights in accordance with Islamic sharia".
(Reporting by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Angus McDowall and Mark
Heinrich)