Despite publicly undertaking to end torture in Saudi Arabia, the authorities continue to practise torture systematically in prisons and interrogation rooms. The authorities’ use of torture has in fact greatly expanded since King Salman came to power and Mohammed bin Salman became Crown Prince: greater numbers are being subjected to torture than before, and a greater variety of torture is being conducted inside prisons.
In a report for the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture in 2016, ALQST detailed specific incidents proving that torture in Saudi Arabia is indeed systematic, and that sometimes judges have ordered interrogators to torture victims. The report noted that the authorities had pledged to the international community that they would put an end to torture, and said they were considering ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and lifting their reservation to Article 20 of the Convention. This still has not happened.
Another report by ALQST, on the further deterioration of the human rights situation under King Salman, drew attention to the increase in torture; and in its latest Annual Report ALQST named some of the activists, both men and women, who have been tortured, including the great human rights defender Dr Abdullah al-Hamid, who lost his life because of being tortured in Saudi prisons. The report also detailed the different types of torture used, such as electric shocks; suspension by the wrists; sleep deprivation; being stripped naked or exposed to the cold or deprived of sunlight for months on end; sexual harassment; and psychological torture such as death threats, threats to kill relatives, or giving the victim false information about the death or killing of a family member. It also gave the names of several torture victims and the types of physical and mental torture they had suffered.
Yet the authorities have not opened any inquiry into the matter, nor allowed any human rights organisation or Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council to visit prisons. The Saudi courts have continued to accept in evidence statements extracted under torture, and many torture victims remain behind bars. The authorities continue to carry out systematic torture, especially against those whose stories have not been publicised, and although they have ended some particularly brutal forms of torture against activists whose stories have become known around the world they are still torturing them in other ways. They are still being denied phone calls, deprived of sleep, exposed to low temperatures, denied personal hygiene items and hot water for showering, and being placed, handcuffed and shackled, in so-called “high security” units. Other detainees are still being brutally tortured and subjected to sexual harassment.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism stated after a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017: “The failure of Saudi Arabia to provide minimum procedural safeguards during detention and interrogation, and its judicial practice of admitting coerced confessions into evidence, strongly suggests that the practice is officially endorsed.” He said that although more than 3,000 allegations of torture had been formally recorded he was not aware of a single official being prosecuted, thus revealing the extent of the impunity enjoyed by government officials involved in acts of torture.
ALQST notes that the Saudi authorities’ efforts to silence the international community by making disingenuous promises of reform are totally at odds with their behaviour on the ground. ALQST affirms that the systematic increase and expansion in the use of torture has caused several detainees to lose their lives and others to leave prison with physical, mental and intellectual disorders. Moreover, the total immunity from punishment extends even to junior officials, in clear and telling evidence that those committing torture have, as they claim, been given orders and authority to do so from higher up.
ALQST therefore calls for the Saudi authorities to be held fully responsible for the torture taking place and all its consequences, as well as their failure to fulfil their official promises; and for pressure to be brought to bear on the authorities to end these practices, to make torture illegal under Saudi laws and regulations, to provide mechanisms for victims to seek redress, and to end officials’ immunity from punishment.
