Saudi Arabia tortures female detainees, say UK MPs

Monitoring Desk

LONDON: The female activists are subjected to torture and kept in cruel and inhumane conditions in Saudi Arabia, a report by a cross-party group of British lawmakers said on Monday.

A Detention Review Panel (DRP) of MPs said in a damning report that Saudi officials could be culpable for abuse at “the highest levels…meeting the threshold for the rime of torture under both Saudi and international law”.

The panel’s report said the female activists arrested last spring had been subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment, including sleep deprivation, assault, threats to life and solitary confinement.

It said the treatment is likely to amount to torture and if they are not provided with urgent access to medical assistance they are at risk of developing long-term health conditions, adding that the culpability rests not only with direct perpetrators but also those who are responsible for or acquiesce to it.

“The Saudi authorities at the highest levels could, in principle, be responsible for the crime of torture.” “Our conclusions are stark,” Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, the DRP chairman, said. “The Saudi women activist detainees have been treated so badly as to sustain an international investigation for torture,” Blunt added.

He said: “Denied proper access to medical care, legal advice or visits from their families, their solitary confinement and mistreatment are severe enough to meet the international definition of torture. “The supervisory chain of command up to the highest levels of Saudi authority would be responsible for this.” “When I heard of the arrests, I was, like many people, shocked that it had happened at all,” Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP, on the panel said.

“The torture, in particular, allegations of sexual harassment and threats of rape, are inexcusable,” she added. (AA)