AHSA, 6 May 2006 — The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), which visited the Ahsa prison recently, says that it has received a number of complaints from the inmates about conditions in the jail.
The NSHR identified about 400 detainees who are being held without formal charges or who have yet to see a courtroom. The Saudi law states that a detainee cannot be held without charges for more than six months and if he was not produced before a judge within that period, he should be released.
A source inside the prison told Al-Yaum newspaper that a large number of detainees there have not been assigned a hearing due to various unspecified delays. Another problem, according to the unnamed source, is that drug enforcement officials arrest suspects but fail to process their paperwork and then forget about them.
Some inmates have requested transfer to prisons close to their hometowns, as they do not receive visits from relatives who find it hard to travel to far-off Ahsa.
Others have spent more time than their sentence and are demanding to be released. “Many are being held longer than they should be,” the source said.
The inmates also say that the prison is not abiding by the rules that segregate convicts based on age and the nature of their offenses. Murderers, drug dealers and those found guilty of minor crimes are placed willy-nilly in cells. Young prisoners, too, are being exposed to hard-core offenders, and the NSHR has said this is causing a revolving-door effect among youths that could otherwise be rehabilitated.
Prison officials attribute the problem to overcrowding. This was the first visit by the human rights body, which was set up three years ago, to the 35-year-old prison.
The agency is scheduled to open a branch Ahsa in the near future. The nascent organization already has branches in Jeddah, Dammam and Jizan, besides its Riyadh headquarters.
