Forgotten in detention
 

The circumstances of detention:

Following the bombing of Khobar Towers in June 1996 which killed a number of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, Saudi authorities launched a campaign of mass arrests against citizens including a large group of Shiite stationed in the eastern region of the kingdom. However ,the investigations did not prove Any detainees implicated in terrorist incident.

But, charges were fabricated properly to these detainees who have been sentenced , on the impact of those charges, long provisions relating to the exercise of religious activities and rituals , the distribution of tapes and religious books, and visiting the shrines , holy places to Shiite sect, outside Saudi Arabia such as Iraq and Iran, an overall natural rights guaranteed by The charters approved by the International Bill of Human Rights. However, the Saudi authorities ban such activities for their Shiite citizens and criminalize it. And issued against dozens of detainees by these charges prison terms ranging from three to seven years, spent in conditions of severe torture and ill-treatment,. some organizations interested in human Rights in the world have talked about that , such as Human Rights Watch in its annual report for 2003.


The bulk of those arrested have been released after completing a period of their sentences and being subjected to systematic torture , but there is still some detainees who spent twelve years and the Saudi authorities did not decide in their situation.

Khobar bombing:

On the twenty-fifth of June 1996 ,a huge explosion occurred in a residential building in the compound housing of Khobar city in eastern Saudi region. It is one of a group of towers occupied by recruited American soldiers. The attackers used a truck (tank) and were able to park it next to the targeted residential tower after passing the security checkpoints at the gates . After the detonation of the bomb, they fled in another car awaiting them outside the compound. The explosion destroyed most of the tower, killed nineteen US soldiers and wounded nearly three hundred and fifty people.

Campaign of arrests:

Since the announcement of the Khobar bombings, the Saudi authorities launched a campaign of random wide-spread arrests among the Shiites citizens who form the majority population in the eastern region rich in oil. The arrests included various groups among them social activists ,intellectuals, clergy and a group sympathetic people to Hezbollah-Hejaz, a Shiite group founded mid-eighties and has a cultural and media activities in Saudi Arabia and abroad. it seems that the Saudi authorities were waiting for opportunity to strike this group and reduce its different activities , therefore the campaign of arrests was comprehensive and included all the symbols of the group. The estimated numbers of detainees then was more than 200 people.

Has been arrested at the same time, Sunni citizens supporting Al-Qaida, some of whom had just returned from the fighting fronts in Afghanistan, but the most noticeable that they were questioned in a superficial way and released quickly, despite their proven involvement in military exercises and possessing banned weapons .

The course of investigations:

In spite of the power of the attack , the accuracy of its organization and the volume of victims who have fallen, and as a terrorist act quantum leap and achievement in the activity of extremist groups in Saudi Arabia, but the results published by the official investigations had not shown clearly who stands behind this terrorist act. The great security cooperation that followed the incident between Saudi and U.S. security agencies did not result in consensus on the determination of the organization behind the planning and implementation of the attack.

Saudi Arabia declared repeatedly that it would not draw any accusation of any State or group abroad without having a clear evidence to demonstrate and condemn those involved beyond any doubt, while the United States of America sought to blame the Islamic Republic of Iran and loyalist groups in the region and �Hezbollah Hejaz� on top of them. However, the investigation with the Saudi citizen �Hani Al-Sayegh� ,who have been extradited from Canada to the United States and was accused of belonging to the group �Hezbollah Hejaz� and participation in the process, resulted in his acquittal before the U.S. courts and allowing him to return to Saudi Arabia, where he is still arrested since without giving him the right to a public trial and a lawyer to defend him.

On the other hand, the only group who blessed this act of terrorism is Al-Qaeda headed by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, as it is consider the best ways to get �infidel� Americans from Saudi Arabia. The series of successive explosions that occurred in Saudi Arabia since that date, which were carried out by members or supporters belonging to Al-Qaeda, indicate that Khobar explosion is in the same context of objectives Al-Qaeda wants to achieve. Before Khobar incident, there were explosions at National Guard training center in Ulaya in Riyadh on 13/11/1995 which led to the deaths of at least seven people including five Americans, two Indians and wounded more than 60 others.

It was found through the course of events that Salafi extremists stand behind the explosions taking place in the Kingdom currently. The nature of these successive explosions bear the same fingerprints of Khobar Towers explosion in terms of the type of explosives used and the tactics and methods of implementation, as well as the great similarities between the explosion and bombing attacks in Khobar and Nairobi and Kenya that Al-Qaida took responsibility and received the blessing of Al-Qaida leadership who admired their executioners and claimed them to be their supporters in the kingdom. In addition to several statements by Saudi dissident living in London �Saad Faqih�, who explained that the explosion has nothing to do with Shiites and it is the Salafis who have implemented this. However, Saudi authorities have sought to implicate the Shiites in the case for the liquidation of their accounts with active religious Shiites, and possibly aimed to limit the force of Sunni Salafi movement and demonstrate the limited influence and activities it has within the Sunni community after it proved to be responsible for Ulaya bombings at the beginning of the wave of violence in the kingdom then.


Mock trials:

From the first moment of their arrest had been investigated without the opportunity for them or their families to assign lawyers to defend them, but instead authorities investigating officer assigned to represent the defense of the accused before the courts supervised by the Salafist religious institution ,which follows a hard line toward the Shiites, represented in the judiciary, which includes judges not relying on written laws or specific judicial reference, but the provisions of these judges issued are subject to the desire, mood and psychological condition of the judge toward the defendant. Trials were enveloped in secrecy, even with the defendants' families. Provisions kept hidden from the defendants and their relatives as well.

Inhumane torture:

Some of those arrested faced the ugliest and most cruel torture procedures during the period of their stay in the custody of secret police in Dammam, including:

1 - the timing of arrest, where some people have been arrested during holidays or in conjunction with their marriage ceremonies.
2 - insulting God and religious beliefs.
3 - personal insults.
4 - beatings with sharp objects as well as electric sticks , whips and cables.
5 � rotator electric chair, where the detainee sits on a chair that operates through electricity and it rotates till he loses consciousness or vomits .
6 - sleep deprivation, some of whom have been forced to stay awake for a whole week.
7 � standing on foot for a long time , and forcing him to lift one hand.
8 � putting a cup of hot tea on the head of the detainee.
9 - prevention to go to the bathroom, resulting in some diseases of the urinary tract and reproductive system and hemorrhoids, while allowing them to enter the bathroom, they could not stay for more than five minutes, even those who got a medical report to be allowed to enter the bathroom at any time they need, are not permitted to do so. Toilets located in wards were opened only at the end of 2001.
10 � full stripping of clothes.
11 - threat and exercise of sexual torture, and the introduction of iron rod in the rectum of the detainee.
12 - solitary confinement for more than 4 months in less than two square-meters room, without windows or conditioning, in an weather characterized by strong heat and humidity. Previously, four detainees stayed in solitary confinement for five years till the time of release without any charge to prove.
13 - preventing some of them from bathing for four consecutive months.
14 - prevent detainees from the practice of sport or any kind of physical exercise.
15 - prevent the entry of newspapers and magazines and all kinds of contact with the world outside the jail.

After being transferred to prison of secret police administration at AL-Haer in Riyadh, conditions of detention relatively improved, where their families were allowed to visit them for periods which may extend to hours, and got more humane treatment than it is the situation in Dammam prison, but families are still having to go through the fatigue of travelling weekly for the visit, which results in physical, psychological and financial troubles for the relatives of the detainees, particularly when some of those detainees are the only source of income for his family. The detainees were returned back to Dammam secret police jail on April 2005 in an atmosphere of optimism that their release is imminent but hopes have been disappointed. On may 2008, they were transferred to a newly constructed jail with high-tech surveillance in a remote area away from population located on Riyadh-Dammam highway. They are gathered now in two isolated room instead of three earlier.

Awaiting universal conscience help:

Saudi authorities continue to delay consideration of the issue of these accused Shiites, and avoid persistent demands to end their case file, even after disillusionment of all the supporting evidence of their innocence. relatives of the detainees have tried repeatedly to inquire about the fate of their sons by writing letters to the Minister of Interior Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, and contacting the Emirate of the eastern region, but they were never informed about the charges against their sons or their sentences and were not given any explanation or answer to insure their fate.



The detainees have spent twelve years under offensive and disturbing psychological and physical circumstances and conditions, in a total isolation from the outside world of the prison, with the exception of irregular visits they get from their families. Interested human rights commissions have been unable to contact them or see the truth and details of their daily living conditions inside the prison.

We, on behalf of relatives of the detainees, send an appeal to the consciences of all the free world, and all human rights bodies and committees dealing with issues involving prisoners of conscience and against torture, and in particular appeal National Society for Human Rights to intervene in accordance with the mechanisms available and legitimate. They must work in relevant international forums to exercise pressure on the Government of the Kingdom Saudi Arabia and force it to immediately end the suffering of these prisoners forgotten in the cells of Dammam secret police jail .



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