DAMMAM/JEDDAH, 25 March 2006 — The three-year-old National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) will inaugurate its third regional branch on Tuesday in Dammam.
The NSHR branch manager, Bandar Al-Hajar, as well as the branch employees, social activists, government officials and the media will attend the opening ceremony.
The Dammam branch will join in the nascent Saudi human rights network with the branches in Jeddah and Jizan, as well as the Riyadh headquarters. The next NSHR branch is scheduled to open in Al-Ahsa in the Eastern Province in the near future.
About 35 men and women of varying professions have joined the NSHR regional branch.
Abduljaleel Al-Saif, the general caretaker of the NSHR in the Eastern Province and one of the 41 founders of the organization, said that it is already working on the situations of prisons in the region.
“The Eastern branch started its job although it hasn’t been officially opened. We visited prisoners at jails in Dammam, Qatif and other areas and saw the reality of the situation and started to write reports,” said Al-Saif.
The human rights agency 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 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 branch in Dammam will be responsible for investigating and processing human rights complaints in the entire Eastern Province until other branches can be opened there.
Although the branch has yet to be formally opened, it has received about 40 cases since Feb. 13, when it began accepting complaints about rights abuses. Progress has been made in 25 of the cases.
“That number includes letters that do not provide any personal details, not even names, involved in the reported cases,” said Al-Saif.
Among the cases are nine domestic abuses, three prisoner cases, four administrative cases, two legal cases and two labor disputes, in addition to people who were asking for financial assistance.
The first case that the branch received was the case of a man who physically and psychologically abused his wife by beating and insulting her.
The Kingdom’s basic system of governance contains guarantees of human rights. It stipulates that the state shall protect human rights in accordance with the Islamic Law.
