Detained Saudi activists face torture, sexual harassment — Campaigners

DUBAI: Saudi activists, including women, detained in a government crackdown this year have faced sexual harassment and torture during interrogation, rights groups said Tuesday.

The activists, held since May in Dhahban prison on the western Red Sea coast, have faced repeated electrocution and flogging, leaving some of them unable to stand or walk, Amnesty International said, citing three separate testimonies.

At least one activist was made to hang from a ceiling, Amnesty added.

In addition to the torture, at least three women activists also endured “forcible kissing and hugging”, Human Rights Watch said in a separate statement.

The reports come as Saudi Arabia faces intense global criticism over the killing of insider-turned-critic Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate on Oct 2, which tipped the kingdom into one of its worst crises.

“Only a few weeks after the ruthless killing of Jamal Khashoggi, these shocking reports of torture, sexual harassment and other forms of ill-treatment, if verified, expose further outrageous human rights violations by the Saudi authorities,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s Middle East research director.

In addition to detaining the activists “simply for peacefully expressing their views, they are also subjecting them to horrendous physical suffering,” Maalouf added.

There was no immediate reaction to the report from Saudi authorities.

More than a dozen activists were arrested in May – just before the historic lifting of a decadeslong ban on women drivers the following month.

Many of them were accused of undermining security and aiding enemies of the state.

Some were subsequently released, but those still detained include Aziza al-Yousef, a retired professor at Riyadh’s King Saud University, Amnesty said.