ISSUES
o Index

o torture

o death penalty

o migrant workers

o political prisoners

o military, security and police relations

COUNTRY INDEX:
o Saudi Arabia

OTHER LANGUAGES:
o French
o Spanish

Culture of brutality

Many traumatized men and women have spoken to Amnesty International over the years about their suffering at the hands of the police. Their testimonies illustrate a culture of brutality, torture and ill-treatment in many police stations, prisons and detention centres across the country. Despite having acceded to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1997, the Saudi Arabian government allows torture to continue unabated.

Torture methods range from techniques involving sticks, electric shocks, cigarette burns, nail-pulling and threats of sexual attack on the detainee or relatives, to beatings. Torture and ill-treatment are used to extract confessions and to enforce discipline. They are also inflicted apparently without reason - simply because it is the culture of the prison. Sometimes, prisoners die as a result.

Maitham al-Bahr, a 21-year-old Saudi Arabian, reportedly died in December 1996 in al-Dammam Central Hospital, allegedly as a result of torture. He was a university student from al-Qatif in the Eastern Province. He was reportedly detained during a wave of arrests after the 1996 bombing of the al-Khobar military complex. In November he was transferred from al-Mabahith al-'Amma headquarters in al-Dammam, where he was being detained, to the hospital. A post-mortem examination reportedly revealed that he had various ailments, including renal failure and swelling in several parts of his body, which were allegedly caused by torture.

Torturers in Saudi Arabia will continue torturing for as long as the criminal justice system fails to provide safeguards. Incommunicado detention, the lack of effective mechanisms for reporting torture, and the lack of investigations into allegations, all foster a climate of impunity. Amnesty International has over the years submitted many cases of allegations of torture to the government, but is not aware of any having been successfully investigated or of any perpetrator having been brought to justice.

Judicial corporal punishments
"I was brought to the whipping area. They tied me to a post. My hands were handcuffed and they also shackled my legs. I was wearing a T-shirt and jogging pants... The whip was one and a half metres long... with a heavy lead piece attached to the tip. It was terrible. Some fell on my thighs and my back. I would fall when the whip reached my feet but the prison guard would raise me up to continue the whipping. It was terrible. I was amazed to find myself still alive after the 70th lash was given. It lasted about 15 minutes... my back was bleeding. I cried."

Donato Lama was still distraught when he described to Amnesty International the flogging he had received in Saudi Arabia two years earlier. A Filipino employee of an airline company in Riyadh, he had been arrested for allegedly preaching Christianity because a photograph showed him participating in a secret Roman Catholic service in Riyadh. He was tortured into signing a confession and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and 70 lashes. The lashes were administered in a single session a month before his release in May 1997. Like other victims of flogging, Donato Lama received no medical treatment for his injuries. Nieves (see page 6) described the flogging she received:

"I thought it will be fast but no, it was done one at a time... [The policeman] really takes his time before striking. I started counting and when it reached 40 I thought I could not make it... I prayed so hard... At last it reached 60... I could not explain the pain experienced. The stick he used was like a bamboo, round but hard."

Flogging and amputation of limbs are used extensively in Saudi Arabia as judicial punishments. They are prescribed by Saudi Arabian law despite the fact that such punishments contravene the UN Convention against Torture. They are applied to many offences, ranging from alcohol and "sexual offences" to theft, and can be handed down by courts with little regard to fair trial procedures.

Men, women and children are flogged in prisons as well as in public squares throughout the country. Flogging has almost unlimited scope of application and there appears to be no upper limit on the number of lashes judges can impose despite the severe physical and psychological consequences.

The most lashes in a single case recorded by Amnesty International is 4,000. These were imposed on Muhammad 'Ali al-Sayyid, an Egyptian national who was convicted of robbery in 1990. The sentence was carried out at a rate of 50 lashes every two weeks. Each time he received the lashes he was left with bruised or bleeding buttocks, unable to sleep or sit for three or four days afterwards.

Judicial amputations are still being carried out with disturbing frequency in Saudi Arabia - at least 90 have been recorded by Amnesty International in the past 18 years, including at least five cases of cross amputation (right hand and left foot).

'The time when they are investigating me I am facing the wall with handcuffs at the back [and] with ankle chain... When they feel that my answer is not... connected to what they are asking me I have received a lot of slapping on my ear and... pushing my face on the wall so sometimes I had bleeding in my nose and my mouth... When they are hitting me in my ribs sometimes I fall down and they used to kick me again with a steel toe... so I had to get up to receive a kicking... At the same time they are showing me a baseball bat... and they say 'if you didn't tell us the truth tonight or today we are going to break your bones'. So I am very, very scared...'
Roger Cortez, a Filipino, was arrested in August 1997 in connection with murder. It is not known what crime he was convicted of, but he received 250 lashes. He was released in October 1999.