(Beirut) \u2013\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s\u00a0public prosecution agency announced on March 1, 2019 that the country\u2019s leading women\u2019s rights activists who have been detained following arrests that began in May 2018 would face charges and be put on trial, Human Rights Watch said today. The prosecutors did not specify the charges.<\/p>\n
Human rights organizations began reporting in November that\u00a0Saudi\u00a0interrogators tortured at least four of the women,\u00a0including with electric shocks and whippings, and had sexually harassed and assaulted them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Saudi prosecution is bringing charges against the women\u2019s rights activists instead of releasing them unconditionally,\u201d said\u00a0Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe Saudi authorities have done nothing to investigate serious allegations of torture, and now, it\u2019s the women\u2019s rights activists, not any torturers, who face criminal charges and trials.\u201d<\/p>\n
On March 1, Saudi public prosecution issued a statement referring to people arrested for undertaking \u201ccoordinated and organized activities\u2026 that aim to undermine the Kingdom\u2019s security, stability, and national unity\u201d who will face charges and the prosecution is in the process of referring them for trial. There was no mention of any investigation into the torture allegations.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0crackdown on women’s rights activists\u00a0began just weeks ahead of the much-anticipated lifting of the driving ban on women on June 24, a cause for which many of the detained activists had campaigned. While some were quickly released, others remain detained without charge. They include Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan, Nouf Abdelaziz, Mayaa al-Zahrani, Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Saada, Hatoon al-Fassi, Shadan al-Onezi, and Amal al-Harbi, all women\u2019s rights activists, as well as male supporters of the movement, including Mohammed Rabea, a social activist. On February 26, Jared Kushner, United States President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law and adviser, met with the Saudi king and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Beirut) \u2013\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s\u00a0public prosecution agency announced on March 1, 2019 that the country\u2019s leading women\u2019s rights activists who have been detained following arrests that began in May 2018 would face charges and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,48,57,90,96,107,113,137,139,160,174,183,184,201,202,209,230,232,233,244,246,249,256,267,277,279,288],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aramco","tag-athens","tag-baroudi","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-embargo","tag-energy-peace","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-boundaries-east-mediterranean","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-poverty-alleviation","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}