MADINAH, 16 January 2008 — The documents proving the large-scale environmental pollutions made by various factories in Hamra Al-Assad in Madinah were submitted to the Court of Grievances yesterday, according to Saud Al-Hujayli, the lawyer representing the residents of Hamra Al-Assad, who is also a member of the Arab Lawyers Federation.
Hamra Al-Assad is one of the two neighborhoods in Madinah where large-scale violations of environmental regulations have been reported. The other district is Aqul at the eastern part of the city.
Government agencies are accused of neglecting the enforcement of the regulations governing environment protection, Al-Hujayli told Arab News yesterday.
The next hearing of the court is scheduled for March 2, the lawyer said.
In the meantime, the residents of the environmentally threatened Aqul district disclosed their plan to submit a complaint to the Court of Grievances against the government departments which issued licenses to several factories that make human existence virtually impossible in the neighborhood, Fahd Al-Husaini, a local resident, told Arab News yesterday.
“We would move the court only if the intervention of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) did not make any positive results to mitigate the sufferings of the local residents,” Al-Husaini said.
It was reported earlier that NSHR sent a delegation to visit several factories in Aqul to ascertain the truth about the local people’s complaints.
Al-Husaini said the evidences the people of the district possessed were enough to file a suit in any court.
“The last study made by the Saudi Geological Survey is abundantly clear about the extent of the harm made by the factories to the ecology in the neighborhood,” Al-Husaini said.
He added that the local residents had with them the photographic records of the workers of some factories burying their wastes in the ravines and watercourses in the area, in clear violation of the environmental regulations.
“According to the district’s map kept at the mayor’s office the location of a factory that pollute the residential area is originally the site for a commercial establishment. This is contradictory to what the factory is doing in the district.”
