Amnesty International Report 1998 - Saudi Arabia
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Date:
1 January 1998
(This report covers the period January-December 1997) Scores of suspected political or religious opponents of the government were detained; most were possible prisoners of conscience. Hundreds of others arrested in previous years remained held without trial. About a dozen political prisoners were serving prison sentences imposed after grossly unfair trials in previous years. There were continued allegations of torture and ill-treatment. The judicial punishment of flogging continued to be imposed. At least 122 people, most of them foreign nationals from developing countries, were executed after trials which fell short of international standards. At least six others had their death sentences lifted moments before they were due to be executed. In September Saudi Arabia acceded to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) with two limiting reservations. One reservation related to Article 3(1) which prohibits the forcible return of anyone to another state where she or he would be at risk of torture. The other reservation was a refusal by the government to recognize the authority of the UN Committee against Torture to investigate allegations of systematic torture, as stipulated in Article 20. The government of King Fahd bin Abdul-Aziz took the apparently unprecedented judicial step of allowing two British nurses, Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan, to appoint and have access to lawyers. The two nurses had been arrested and charged with murder at the end of December 1996. The right of access to, and defence by, lawyers in criminal and political trials was neither recognized by law nor allowed in practice in Saudi Arabia. The government did not clarify whether the granting of access to lawyers to the two nurses was introduced as an exception or as a universal rule applicable in all cases. However, this right was not extended to other prisoners during the year. The government's ban on political parties and trade unions remained in place. Press censorship continued to be strictly enforced. Information on human rights violations remained severely limited. The government continued to impose restrictions on access to the country by international human rights organizations, and failed to respond to communications by Amnesty International. Scores of suspected political or religious opponents of the government, most of them possible prisoners of conscience, were detained. Most were members of the Shia community and were detained following sporadic arrests in various parts of the country, particularly the Eastern Province, during the first half of the year. Those detained included Shia clerics such as Sheikh Hassan Muhammad Nimr who was arrested in March by the al-Mabahith al-Amma (General Intelligence) in al-Dammam. He reportedly remained held incommunicado at the headquarters of the al-Mabahith al-Amma at the end of the year. Bander Fahd al-Shihri, who was detained on political grounds, was reportedly held without charge or trial in al-Ha'ir Prison in Riyadh at the end of the year. He had been forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia in May by the Canadian Government, which refused his asylum claim, and was arrested upon arrival in Riyadh. He was held incommunicado for weeks before being allowed family visits. He was a possible prisoner of conscience. Hundreds of political prisoners, including possible prisoners of conscience, arrested in previous years continued to be held without trial. Scores of others arrested with them were released during the year. The detainees included the so-called Arab Afghan veterans who had returned to Saudi Arabia after taking part in the armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Shia and Sunni Muslim critics or opponents of the government, some of whom had been detained since their arrest in 1994. Sheikh Jafar Ali al-Mubarak, who was detained following mass arrests in 1996 targeting Shia Muslim critics or opponents of the government (see Amnesty International Report 1997), continued to be held incommunicado and in solitary confinement in the headquarters of al-Mabahith al-Amma in al-Dammam. Sheikh Salman bin Fahd al-Awda and Sheikh Safr Abd al-Rahman al-Hawali, both arrested in 1994, and Dr Nasser Umr, arrested in 1995, remained held in al-Ha'ir Prison (see Amnesty International Report 1997). Among those released during the year were Anmar al-Masari, son of Mohammad al-Masari, a government opponent living in exile, and three of his relatives (see Amnesty International Report 1997). They also included Abdullah Abbas al-'Ahmad, an employee of the Saudi Arabian national oil company (aramco), who had been detained together with his brother, Kamil Abbas al-'Ahmad, a student, following the wave of arrests targeting members of the Shia community in July 1996. Abdullah Abbas al-'Ahmad was released without charge in November, but his brother continued to be held without charge or trial (see below) About a dozen possible prisoners of conscience convicted in previous years were serving prison sentences imposed after grossly unfair trials; the trials were held in secret and defendants were denied an effective opportunity to defend themselves. They included Ali al-Utaybi, who was serving a three-year prison sentence imposed in 1996 following his conviction on charges which reportedly included having contact with the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights, an illegal organization. However, at least seven other possible prisoners of conscience who were serving prison terms imposed following their convictions on charges of membership of the Hizb al-Tahrir al-'Islam, Islamic Liberation Party, were released. They included Uthman Bakhash, a Lebanese national, who was serving a 30-month prison sentence (see Amnesty International Report 1997). New information was received that Donato Lama, a Philippine national previously reported to have been detained without trial since his arrest in 1995 on suspicion of preaching Christianity (see Amnesty International Report 1997), had in fact been sentenced in December 1996 to one and a half years' imprisonment and 70 lashes (see below). He was released in April or May following completion of his sentence and was deported to the Philippines. There were allegations of torture and ill-treatment and reports that one prisoner died as a result of torture in December 1996. Methods of torture to which the prisoners were allegedly subjected included beatings, suspension from the ceiling and use of shackles. Those reported to have been tortured and ill-treated during the year included more than 40 Indian children aged between six and 14, and Kamil Abbas al-'Ahmad who had been in detention since his arrest in July 1996 (see above). The children were allegedly beaten and deprived of food while in the custody of the police in Jeddah. They were arrested at the beginning of the year apparently for begging and because their visas had expired. They were deported to India in February. Kamil Abbas al-'Ahmad was reported to have been suspended upside-down from a fan and beaten with cables and sticks. Maitham al-Bahr, a student from al-Qatif, was reported to have died as a result of torture after his detention during the mass arrests which followed the bombing of the al-Khobar military complex in June 1996 (see Amnesty International Report 1997). He was initially held incommunicado in the headquarters of the al-Mabahith al-Amma in al-Dammam and was subsequently admitted to al-Dammam Central Hospital, where he died. A post-mortem examination reportedly revealed that he suffered from, among other things, renal failure and swellings on various parts of his body, which were said to be consistent with the allegations of torture. The judicial punishment of flogging continued to be imposed. For example, Donato Lama (see above) was subjected to 70 lashes carried out in a single session in February in the courtyard of Malaz Prison in full view of other prisoners, and was barely able to walk as a result. At least 122 people were executed and at least six others had their death sentences lifted moments before they were due to be executed. Most of those executed were migrant workers, notably from Afghanistan, Chad, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines. All had been sentenced after grossly unfair trials conducted in secret and without legal assistance; most were convicted of drug-trafficking or murder. At least three women were executed, including Soleha Anam Kudiran, an Indonesian domestic worker who was executed in September. She had been sentenced to death, possibly in 1994, for the murder of her Saudi Arabian employer. According to reports, neither her family in Indonesia nor the Indonesian Embassy in Saudi Arabia were aware that she had been sentenced to death; they learned about her fate only after her execution had been carried out and made public in a Ministry of the Interior statement. The six who had their sentences lifted had all been convicted of murder and pardoned by heirs of the victims who, under Sharia (Islamic) Law, have the right to settle for Diyya (blood money) instead of the execution of the murderer. In one case, that of Muhammad Salah Obeid, who was convicted of murdering Muhammad Hamid Khider, the heirs pardoned him on the day of his scheduled execution, reportedly in exchange for payment of a large sum of money. The exact number of prisoners who remained under sentence of death at the end of the year was not known as such information was kept secret, but included at least one woman, Sarah Dematera, a Philippine national who had been convicted of murdering her employer in 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1997). In November Amnesty International published a report, Behind closed doors: unfair trials in Saudi Arabia, which highlighted the areas of the justice system that violate the right to fair trial and put forward a set of recommendations designed to redress the situation. In response to press questions about the report, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was quoted in November as having said: "It's nothing new. We are sure we are on the right path, preserving the interests of the nation and its citizens
We don't care what it says." Amnesty International welcomed Saudi Arabia's accession to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the UN Convention against Torture, and urged the government to take further steps to accede to other human rights treaties and to implement them fully. The organization requested clarification of the reasons for the arrest and detention of political detainees and called for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience and for fair trials in accordance with international standards for all others held on political grounds. Amnesty International also called for reports of torture to be investigated, for anyone found responsible to be brought to justice, and for the commutation of all sentences of flogging and death. No response was received from the government In April Amnesty International updated its previous submissions on Saudi Arabia for UN review under a procedure established by Economic and Social Council Resolutions 728f/1503, for confidential consideration of communications about human rights violations.
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