How Saudi Arabia silences its human rights
activists
Amnesty
International, 2014
"A
security officer asked me, ‘do you have any imprisoned relatives?’ I said,
yes all prisoners are my family. He replied - and I quote him- ‘Do you want
to join them in prison?’ I replied, No... we want them released." Tweet from
Mohammed al-Bajadi during the protest which he attended on 20 March 2011. He
was arrested the following day. |
This briefing focuses on the cases of 11 human rights
activists in Saudi Arabia who are either imprisoned or on trial and facing
imprisonment. All 11 are founders or members of the Saudi Civil and Political
Rights Association (ACPRA), an officially unlicensed independent human rights
organization that campaigned for the rights of political prisoners and
detainees in Saudi Arabia until the authorities ordered its closure in March
2013.
Five of the 11 ACPRA members are detainees held without trial
or awaiting re-trial – they have been held for periods of up to four years. Three
are free pending the outcome of their trials. And another three are serving
prison terms of up to 15 years to which they were sentenced, in separate
trials. All of their trials were unfair. They were convicted on vague charges,
such as “breaking allegiance to” Saudi Arabia’s ruler and “questioning the
integrity of officials,” in connection with their peaceful activism in defence
of human rights in Saudi Arabia. Some of them were held in pre-trial detention
for lengthy periods, denied access to lawyers and families, and tortured or
otherwise ill-treated by security officials. At least one was denied legal
representation at his trial.
Amnesty International considers all eight detained members to
be prisoners of conscience and is calling on the Saudi Arabian authorities to
release them immediately and unconditionally. The organization is also calling on the authorities to drop the
charges against those facing trial and ensure that the sentences and
convictions of all ACPRA members are quashed.
Prior to its suppression, ACPRA acted as a thorn in the side
of the Saudi Arabian government. ACPRA members spoke out repeatedly against the
detention practices of the Saudi Arabian authorities and were especially
critical of the Ministry of Interior and its feared security and intelligence
branch, the General Directorate of Investigations (GDI) or al-Mabahith, whose
officers wield extensive powers and are able to arrest, detain, torture and
abuse those they suspect with impunity. They use these powers not only against
terrorism suspects, but against virtually anyone who speaks out against the
authorities, including peaceful critics such as those associated with ACPRA.
Recently implemented anti-terror laws and decrees have extended a legal cover for
these abuses of power where even peaceful criticism is all too readily branded
as terrorism against the state.
The Saudi Arabian authorities are currently holding hundreds
of untried political detainees, and have sentenced many others to long prison
terms after unfair trials before the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) or other
courts. Many are alleged by the authorities to have committed violent offences,
or to have supported violent and extremist armed groups such as al-Qa’ida. Others,
are human rights defenders and activists who have sought to expose the abusive
nature of the Saudi Arabian system of justice and to promote reforms that could
bring that system into line with the requirements of international law, including
human rights treaties that Saudi Arabia has ratified. By defending rights and
speaking out, the ACPRA members and a small group of other courageous human rights
advocates, appear to have been seen by Saudi Arabia’s rulers as challenging
their authority and policies, and to have been targeted in consequence. ACPRA, particularly, appears to
have been perceived by the Saudi Arabian authorities to offer such a challenge because
it espoused a philosophy of human rights anchored in Islamic law and
traditions, rather than the more common human rights discourse seen in Saudi
Arabia as western- oriented, and this may be the real reason the authorities
have made such efforts to suppress it.
Recommendations
Amnesty International is calling on the Saudi Arabian
authorities to take the following actions without delay:
-
Immediately and
unconditionally release the ACPRA prisoners and detainees and all other
prisoners of conscience – those detained or imprisoned solely on account of
their peaceful exercise of freedom of expression and other human rights,
including rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly;
-
Ensure that the sentences
and convictions are quashed and drop any outstanding charges against the ACPRA
members whose cases are described here and against all other prisoners of conscience;
-
Ensure that all persons
deprived of their liberty are protected from torture and other ill- treatment
and are detained in facilities whose conditions satisfy the standards laid down
in the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners;
-
Lift the foreign travel
bans in force against the ACPRA activists and other human rights activists and
defenders, respect their freedom of movement and end the use of other arbitrary
measures to penalize and harass them;
-
Repeal the anti-terror law
and related legislation or extensively revise it in order to bring it into full
conformity with international law and international human rights standards,
including by adopting a definition of terrorism that does not infringe on the peaceful
exercise of human rights.
Flogging
as corporal punishment in Saudi Arabia Flogging
is used extensively as corporal punishment in Saudi Arabia despite it being a
state party to the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CAT). In
2002, the UN Committee against Torture expressly stated that the use of
flogging by Saudi Arabia
violates the Convention. Flogging
in Saudi Arabia is mandatory for a number of offences and can also be used at
the discretion
of the judge. Sentences can range from dozens to tens of thousands of lashes,
and are usually
carried out in instalments, at intervals ranging from two weeks to one month. The
highest number of lashes imposed in a single case recorded by Amnesty
International was 40,000
lashes in the case of a defendant convicted on murder charges in 2009. A member
of ACPRA, Omar al-Sa’id, has been sentenced to flogging. |
Excerpts from ‘Saudi Arabia’s ACPRA: How the kingdom silences
its human rights activists’
AI index: MDE 23/025/2014
You can download the whole report at the link below:
http://bit.ly/1vd4qE0
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