“However, the NSHR has been successful in providing all possible help to Saudi detainees in Egypt and Yemen. Efforts of the Saudi missions in those countries have been successful in solving prisoners’ problems,” NSHR Chairman Mufleh Al-Qahtani told Arab News on Saturday.
The NSHR learned that dozens of Saudis were currently detained in Iraqi prisons, Al-Qahtani said, adding that there was no clear information about Saudi detainees in Syrian jails. The NSHR was waiting for a reply to a cable it sent to the Saudi Embassy in Damascus for information about a Saudi citizen subjected to torture by Syrian authorities after being detained without any valid charge, the human rights official said.
The NSHR also asked the embassy to gather information about other Saudi prisoners currently held in jails without charges in that country, he said. The NSHR sent the cable following a complaint it received from a Saudi, who was detained by Syrian police while returning from Lebanon. The Saudi said he was blindfolded and thrown into a jail in Kafar Sausah. He said he did not know why he was detained, Al-Mufleh said.
“He was subjected to various methods of torture including electric shock, denial of sleep and cold water treatment besides continuous beating. He said other Saudis were also being tortured like him in that prison. They are denied contact to the Saudi Embassy,” the official said. Nearly 300 Saudis have been detained as part of the war on terror in various parts of the world, and 200 of them are still languishing in interrogation centers, Al-Watan daily quoted spokesman of the Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) Haytham Manae as saying on Saturday.
Manae added the ACHR has received only four complaints involving severe torture, although there were many recent detention reports.
