Qatar 'slaps travel ban' on former justice minister

A prominent Qatari human rights lawyer and former justice minister has been barred from leaving the country, a rights group said on Friday, while demanding his urgent release.

Najeeb al-Nuaimi was also a lead defence lawyer in ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's trial and has since voluntarily defended prisoners of conscience in the Gulf state.

"Authorities in Qatar prevented... Nuaimi from travelling without informing him about any possible reasons," the Gulf Centre for Human Rights said in a statement.

It said he had been placed on a list of individuals banned from leaving the state, without giving "prior clarification or directing any charges against him".

In an interview with El Watan News, al-Nuaimi said the ban – which was imposed by the deputy general on January 8 – was not backed by any specific reasoning, however was “obviously linked to my political stances.”

“I believe it is a form of punishment,” he added.

One of Nuaimi's clients, poet Mohamed Rashid al-Ajami, was given a life sentence in 2011 for a poem he wrote criticising the Gulf state's ruler, which authorities said incited violence against the state.

Ajami was released in 2016 after serving more than four years in jail.

Nuaimi was also head of an international committee in 2003 to defend suspected ‘Islamist' militants imprisoned by the US military in Guantanamo.

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights urged Qatar to revoke the travel ban "immediately and without any conditions", and to guarantee rights defenders in Qatar the freedom to operate "without fear of reprisals".

Qatar, like most Gulf States, has been spared much of the unrest brought in by the Arab Spring uprisings that have rocked the Middle East since 2011.

But activists throughout the region have resorted to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to advocate human rights, prompting what rights groups say is a systematic clampdown by authorities.

In early December, Human rights watchdog Amnesty International condemned Qatari authorities after it blocked the independent Doha News website without providing any reasoning.

The move was described as an obvious attempt of censorship, with Amnesty stating it was an "alarming setback for freedom of expression in the country".