Senators urge Obama to raise Saudi rights cases on visit

WASHINGTON (AP) - Five senators are calling on President Barack Obama to press Saudi Arabia on human rights issues and raise the cases of two imprisoned advocates when he visits Riyadh this week.

Marco Rubio, Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, James Risch and Ron Johnson sent a letter to Obama on Tuesday asking him to make the issue a prominent part of his trip. They said unless Obama makes human rights a priority, U.S.-Saudi relations will suffer.

The lawmakers cited the cases Raif Badawi, a poet who faces a lengthy jail term and lashes on charges of insulting the kingdom's influential religious establishment, and rights activist Waleed Abu al-Khair, who defended Badawi and was sentenced to 15 years in prison on anti-terrorism charges. They urged Obama to advocate the immediate and unconditional release of both.