Amnesty says Saudi activists beaten, tortured in detention
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Several activists imprisoned in Saudi Arabia since May, including a number of women who campaigned for the right to drive, have been beaten and tortured during interrogation, Amnesty International said Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia has detained at least 10 women and seven men on vague national security allegations related to their human rights work. Those detained include Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza alYousef, who had campaigned for the right to drive before the decades-long ban was lifted in June.
Amnesty said that according to three testimonies it obtained, some of the activists were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand properly. In one instance, an activist was hung from the ceiling. Another testimony said one of the detained women was subjected to sexual harassment by interrogators wearing face masks.
The kingdom is at the center of an international firestorm after the brutal killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had written critically about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s crackdown on dissent, including the arrests of the women activists. Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered by Saudi agents in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
“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.