JEDDAH, 24 March 2006 — No prisoner in Saudi jails will be held without trial for more than six months, according to an announcement made by Maj. Gen Ali Al-Harithy, director general of prisons.
During a tour of the Breman prison in Jeddah, Al-Harithy stressed the need for swift completion of all legal formalities in the case of prisoners who await trial and said the cases against them should be expedited. He made his comments during an inspection of Breman’s newly renovated facilities that can accommodate up to 1,000 prisoners. He also visited the workshop where the inmates were given training in various trades.
In coordination with the Justice Ministry, fast track courts will be established near jails in Jeddah as an initial step, Al-Watan newspaper quoted the major general as saying.
Al-Harithy also said that management of the prisons in Makkah and Jeddah would be merged, after completing studies about expanding the facilities.
The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) had earlier criticized the conditions prevailing in some Saudi prisons after visiting prisons in Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah, Taif and Jizan. The NSHR had forwarded to the Ministry of Interior the complaints it received from some prisoners or their families about delays in hearings, being imprisoned longer than the terms of their sentences, being forced to register false confessions or being detained under tenuous suspicions.
The NSHR also had pointed out the long distance between Riyadh’s Al-Hair prison and the court that causes problems in the daily transport of the detainees. It also noted that judges do not visit the detainees in prison to review their cases.
Addressing the inmates at Breman, the director general assured that all the jails in the Kingdom will be provided with modern facilities and their stay would be made more comfortable.
“The general administration for prisons is striving to improve the facilities in prisons in keeping with the qualitative shift in utilities in the Kingdom. The administration is in constant touch with the Labor Ministry to employ people skilled in helping prisoners. The prisoners will be undergoing sessions of Qur’an learning and religious lectures in addition to computer training, English classes and training in various trades so that they can successfully face the problems of life after their release and integrate easily into the mainstream.”
Maj. Gen. Ahmad Al-Zahrani director of the Jeddah prison added that in the course of training program, 25 inmates memorized the entire Qur’an in 31 classes while 45 prisoners embraced Islam. The prisoners enacted a play to mark the visit of the director general.
The Kingdom’s basic system of government contains the principal guarantees of human rights. It stipulates that the state shall protect human rights in accordance with the Islamic Shariah (Art. 26) and that no one may be arrested, detained or restricted in his freedom of action except as provided by law (Art. 36).
