RIYADH, 22 April 2007 — Footage of a prison officer beating prisoners has prompted the government to suspend two guards and open an investigation, a senior prison official said yesterday.
Video images captured on mobile telephones and published on websites in recent days showed a guard whipping two prisoners, who appeared to be in their early 20s, with what looked like plastic tubes. A second guard was involved.
“They did it as a form of meting out fatherly discipline, like teachers do in schools, but it was individual behavior that we cannot accept,” Reuters news agency quoted Prisons Director Gen. Ali Al-Harthi as saying. “They have been suspended pending an investigation.”
Newspapers said the prisoners, held in a non-smoking area at the high-security Haer prison outside of Riyadh, had asked guards to supply them with cigarettes.
Earlier this year, images captured on a mobile telephone led to the trial of two police officers in Egypt accused of torturing a detainee, signaling the growing power of Internet bloggers and websites in Arab countries.
