Saudi Arabia

238. Saudi Arabia has a legal limit of six months of detention before trial, but in reality the domestic intelligence agency - the General Directorate for Investigations, or Mahabith, run by the Ministry of the Interior - functions without effective judicial oversight, running its own prisons, which are used to hold both political prisoners and those regarded as being involved in terrorism, and ignoring court orders to release detainees held for longer than the legal limit. In July 2007, the Minister for the Interior admitted that 9,000 “security suspects” had been detained between 2003 and 2007, and that 3,106 of them were still being held.446

239. In recent years, United Nations bodies have focused on several cases in Saudi Arabia, including the ones set out below.

240. In 2007, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reported that nine individuals - Saud Mukhtar al-Hashimi, Sulaiman al-Rashoudi, Essam Basrawy, Abdulrahman al-Shumairi,

444 _{Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, opinion No. 16/2007 (A/HRC/10/21/Add.1).} 445 _{Interview with Aissa Hamoudi (annex II, case 11).}

446 _{Amnesty International, “Saudi Arabia, assaulting human rights in the name of counter-} terrorism”, available from www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE23/009/2009/en/692d9e42- b009-462a-8a16-7336ea4dfc3c/mde230092009en.pdf.

Abdulaziz al-Khuraiji, Moussa al-Garni, Abdulrahman Sadeq Khan, Al-Sharif Seif Al-Dine Shahine and, allegedly, Mohammed Hasan al-Qurashi - were arrested on 2 February 2007 by agents of the Intelligence Services (Mabahith) in Jeddah and Medina and had been held in incommunicado detention at an unknown location ever since. The arrest of these men, who comprise doctors, academics, businessmen, a lawyer and a retired judge, and are all

long-standing advocates of political and social reforms, was ordered by the Ministry of the Interior on the basis of allegations of financing terrorism and illegal activities. At the time of the report, the Government had not refuted the fact that the men had already been held in secret detention for 156 days, and had denied visits, access to a lawyer and the opportunity to question the legality of their detention.447

241. The experts conducted an interview with Hassna Ali Ahmed al-Zahrani, the wife of Saud Mukhtar al-Hashimi, a doctor and an advocate for civil and political liberties who, at the time, had been held for two years and nine months, including many months of incommunicado

detention. Mrs. al-Zahrani explained that, on the night of 2 February 2007, her husband went out with friends (including a university professor and a judge) to attend a meeting, but never

returned. She learned of his arrest when the Minister for the Interior made a public statement regarding arrests after a raid, and spoke to her husband by telephone after 10 days, when he was held in an annex to a prison run by the Public Investigations Unit (PIU). He was then held incommunicado in a PIU prison for five months until she was allowed to meet him, when he told her that he was being held in solitary confinement, and that he was also being interrogated, sometimes at night. Despite being allowed visits from his wife, Mr. al-Hashimi has never been formally charged, has not been allowed access to a lawyer and has not been brought before a judge. The reasons given for his arrest and detention vary, and they include allegations that he has been advocating reform, fund-raising or simply that he is a “suspect”.448

8. Syrian Arab Republic

242. When considering the third periodic report of the Syrian Arab Republic, the Human Rights Committee noted with concern the state of emergency that has been in force in the country since 1963, which provides for many derogations in law or practice from the rights guaranteed under articles 9, 14, 19 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, without any convincing explanations being given as to the relevance of these derogations to the conflict with Israel and the necessity for these derogations to meet the exigencies of the situation claimed to have been created by the conflict. The Committee also noted that the State party had not fulfilled its obligation to notify other States parties of the derogations it has made and of the reasons for these derogations, as required by article 4 (3) of the Covenant. As a consequence, the Committee recommended that State parties should ensure firstly that the measures it had taken, in law and practice, to derogate from Covenant rights were strictly required by the exigencies of the situation; secondly, that the rights provided for in article 4 (2) of the Covenant were made non-derogable in law and practice; and thirdly, that States parties were duly informed, as

447 _{Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, opinion No. 27/2007 (A/HRC/10/21/Add.1).} 448 _{Interview with the wife of Saud Mukhtar al-Hashimi (annex II, case 3).}

required by article 4 (3) of the Covenant, of the provisions from which it had derogated and the reasons therefore, and of the termination of any particular derogation.449

243. The Human Rights Committee also expressed its concern at continuing reports of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, practices that it found to be facilitated by the resort to prolonged incommunicado detention, especially in cases of concern to the

Supreme State Security Court, and by the security or intelligence services. As a consequence, the Committee recommended that the State party should take firm measures to stop the use of

incommunicado detention and eradicate all forms of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by law enforcement officials, and should ensure prompt, thorough and impartial investigations by an independent mechanism into all allegations of torture and

ill-treatment, prosecute and punish perpetrators, and provide effective remedies and rehabilitation to the victims.450

244. The experts note a recent report of Human Rights Watch in which concern is expressed at the current situation of the Kurdish community in the Syrian Arab Republic. The organization affirmed that, inter alia, the Emergency Law had been used to detain a number of leading Kurdish political activists without arrest warrants, and that 30 former Kurdish detainees, who were interviewed for the report, had been held incommunicado at the security branches for interrogations by security forces and that some of them had allegedly been subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including sleep deprivation and stress positions. Furthermore, it is ascertained that these people were only able to inform their relatives of their whereabouts after being transferred to ordinary prisons. According to the report, this practice has not only been used against Kurdish activists, but also against all political and human rights activists.451

245. In 2009, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances transmitted eight cases concerning members of the Kurdish community of Kamishli who had been allegedly abducted in 2008 and whose whereabouts remain unknown.452

246. In the context of the present study, the experts conducted an interview with Maryam Kallis, who was held in secret detention in Damascus from 15 March to 7 June 2009.453 _{According to} her report, Ms. Kallis was held in the basement of a building located in a private area in Baab-Tooma, Damascus, which, she assumed, could have been run by the Mukhabarat, the Syrian intelligence services. During this period, Ms. Kallis was taken blindfolded eight to ten

449 _{CCPR/CO/84/SYR, para. 6.} 450

Ibid., para. 9.

451 _{Human Rights Watch, “Group denial, repression of Kurdish political and cultural rights in} Syria”, 26 November 2009, pp. 44-49. Available from

www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/11/26/group-denial. 452 _{A/HRC/13/31, para. 546.}

times to another room of the same building for interrogation and, although not physically assaulted, she suffered mental torture and witnessed scenes of torture where men were beaten with electric rods. Furthermore, on two occasions, she very briefly met with representatives of the British consulate at another venue. She also alleged that her family did not know where she was being held and that, when her husband tried to find out where she was, British authorities had said that they could not disclose the place of detention for two reasons: they had an

agreement with the Syrian Arab Republic not to disclose this place and, if they did, Ms. Kallis’ sister could go there and put Ms. Kallis’ life at risk.

9. Yemen

247. In 2008, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reported on the case of Abdeljalil al-Hattar, who was arrested at dawn on 14 December 2007 by political security officers at a mosque in Sana’a, then handcuffed and taken to an unknown location. For two months, he was held incommunicado in cells belonging to the political police. When his family was allowed to visit him, they learned that he had not been brought before a magistrate to be formally charged with any crime, and had not been given access to a lawyer. In its response to the Working Group on 19 November 2008, the Government of Yemen confirmed the arrest of Mr. al-Hattar, citing terrorist activity, but claimed that he had never disappeared and that he would be subject to legal proceedings.454

248. The experts interviewed Mr. al-Hattar, who explained that he had been held in incommunicado detention for two months and had been unlawfully detained for a total of 14 months. Asked whether this arrangement of denying visits for the first couple of months was a method regularly adopted by the authorities for detainees, he stated that it varied from person to person, but that weekly visits were the usual arrangement for detainees. He was not aware whether the detention centre had ever been visited by ICRC.

249. Mr. al-Hattar explained that the reason that had been given for his arrest was that he had “hosted a wanted person” who, in fact, “was brought to his home by an acquaintance, but not known to him personally”. He stated that it was common local practice to host travellers, but that it was two days after he had hosted this person that he was arrested. He also explained that he understood that his release had been the result of an agreement reached between the Government of Yemen and Al-Qaida, whereby a group of detainees would be released if Al-Qaida ceased its attacks. It was his understanding that it was up to the political security unit to select which detainees would be released under this arrangement; the unit selected persons such as himself who had not been charged and who had been unfairly detained. He added that many young people have been unfairly detained in Yemen.455

250. The experts also spoke to another Yemeni subjected to secret detention. A.S. was seized on 15 August 2007 from his home in Sana’a, and held in incommunicado detention for two months in an official prison belonging to the Political Security Body - Intelligence Unit, the political

454 _{Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, opinion No. 40/2008 (A/HRC/13/30/Add.1).} 455 _{Interview with Abdeljalil Al-Hattar (annex II, case 1).}

security prison in Sana’a. During that time, no one knew his whereabouts and he did not have any access to the outside world, including any access to a doctor, lawyer or ICRC. His family was not able to visit him until two months after his arrest. He was apparently seized because of a call made from his mobile phone by a relative, and was held for another seven months after the initial period of incommunicado detention. He was released on 27 May 2008. In the report on his interview, it was noted that, when he asked on the day of his release why he had been detained, he was simply told that many innocent people were detained, and he could consider himself to be one such person.456