U.S. 'troubled' by jailing of Saudi human rights activist

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The United States said on Monday it was troubled by Saudi Arabia's sentencing prominent human rights lawyer Walid abu al-Khair to 15 years in prison on charges that included seeking to undermine the state and insulting the judiciary. "We urge the Saudi government to respect international human rights **rms, a point we make to them regularly," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. A Jeddah court also fined him 200,000 Saudi riyals ($53,300), banned him from traveling outside the kingdom for a**ther 15 years and had all his websites closed down, the Saudi state news agency reported on Sunday. Abu al-Khair, the founder and director of an organization named the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, was critical of an anti-terrorism law passed by Saudi Arabia at the start of the year that was widely condemned by rights activists as a tool to stifle dissent.

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