Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights

The Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR; Arabic: لجنة الدفاع عن الحقوق الشرعية) was a Saudi dissident group created in 1993 which opposed the Saudi government as un-Islamic.

The CDLR was the first opposition organization in the Kingdom openly challenging the monarchy, accusing the government and senior ulama of not doing enough to protect the legitimate Islamic rights of the Muslims.

Founded in Riyadh on May 3, 1993 by six prominent Islamist scholars and academics, the Committee served to "pass on the views of the Islamist opposition that was rapidly developing in the universities and mosques" of Saudi Arabia. In its Arabic language pronouncements the CDLR maintained a strict "Islamist line," claiming to defend "the rules laid out in the sharia," while its English language statements denounced violations of human rights in Saudi.

Using the new media such as faxes and Internet efficiently, the CDLR members from the Kingdom and later from the exile in London, challenged the foundation of the Saudi regime, that is, the contract between Saudi rulers and the religious establishment, and criticized the behavior and decisions of the Saudi authorities, and King Fahd in particular.

Following an interview by the BBC of Mohammad al-Masari, its official spokesman, the CDLR's "signatories and their sympathizers promptly lost their jobs and were thrown into jail." The organization was banned, and its members either left Saudi Arabia or went underground. The CDLR was described as "banned and defunct" by the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association when the latter was created in October 2009.

Following a campaign by Amnesty International, al-Masari was released from prison, and along with Sa'ad Al-Faqih reestablished the CDLR in London, United Kingdom in April 1994. The group made "feverish use" of fax machines and later an Internet website to criticize the ruling family and deliver its message to Saudi Arabia. Their campaign was effective enough that the Saudi royal family threatened the British government with an end to "lucrative defence contracts and other commercial deals" if "Mr Masari was not silenced," and a court battle ensued over Whitehall's attempt to do just that. "In the end, Mr Masari won a legal battle ... but soon after that he faded from public prominence."

...
Wikipedia