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VI. Arbitrary Arrest and Detention

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 9, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Article 9 of the ICCPR specifies, “No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.”¹⁴⁷ Article 14 of the amended Arab Charter on Human Rights, to which Saudi Arabia has acceded and which entered into force in 2007, states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, search or detention without a legal warrant.”

According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, “deprivation of liberty is arbitrary … [w]hen it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty.”¹⁴⁸ In order for an arrest not to be arbitrary it is not enough to follow the procedures of the law, such as issuing formal but unsubstantiated charges: as the UN Human Rights Committee explained, “arbitrariness” is not to be equated with “against the law,” but must be interpreted more broadly to include elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability and due process of law.”¹⁴⁹ The UN Working Group has pointed out that the practice of arresting persons without a warrant, not informing them of the reasons for their arrest, and not filing charges against them within a reasonable period of time also renders their detention arbitrary, in contravention of articles 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the UDHR and articles 9 and 14 of the ICCPR.¹⁵⁰

In Saudi Arabia two practices that exemplify such arbitrary deprivation of liberty are detentions for activity that cannot be regarded as unlawful and detention beyond the expiry of a criminal sentence. In Saudi Arabia individuals are also liable for detention in the event that they have not paid private debts, a ground generally prohibited under international human rights standards as it is considered akin to debt bondage or slavery. More specifically, article 11 of the ICCPR states, “No one shall be imprisoned merely on the ground of inability to fulfill a contractual obligation,” which extends to prohibiting the deprivation of personal liberty either by a creditor or by the state for failure to pay a debt.¹⁵¹

Criminalizing Lawful Activity

Under Saudi law there is much that is prohibited. As results often, the prosecution faces little challenge in substantiating the factual basis of the alleged criminal offense with which a defendant is charged. However, the imprecise criminal nature of the charges themselves casts doubt on whether a crime has occurred. The absence of codified criminal provisions leads prosecutors and judges to belabor theories of sovereignty, obedience to the ruler, and other poorly defined concepts in Saudi legal practice, so that those legal practitioners seem to share this inverted legal concept: whatever is not permitted by law is forbidden.¹⁵²

Examples of how legitimate exercise of basic freedoms can be categorized by the legal system as criminal acts are several. Samih was arrested in late 1999. He was initially detained in Malaz prison, because Riyadh’s governor, Prince Salman, had accused him of stealing money. On December 25, 1999, the mabahith transferred him out of that prison and accused him of belonging to a non-religious party, and of being the secretary-general of the Communist Party. Salih explained that under torture during interrogation

At first I refused to answer their questions: “Do you have relations with foreign parties?” “Where are the party files?” “Where and who are the party members?” “You are a spy for a foreign country!”—which they did not specify. …[After they tortured me] I confessed.… After one year, they released me, but I had to sign a pledge that “I will not mingle with others.” The officer told me that I am guilty, but that my release is beneficence from the king.¹⁵³

A prosecutor charged Badi with an alleged criminal offense of contacting Al Jazeera television, which the judge accepted. Badi had contacted Al Jazeera from his home in the Eastern Province and gave an interview regarding an incident in Najran in April 2000. One-and-a-half years after the interview, the mabahith of Dammam arrested Badi. Badi told Human Rights Watch that after he spent two months in an underground cell alone, officers brought him to a judge and the prosecutor presented four charges:

He charged me with contacting Al Jazeera, going beyond [the limits of] obedience to the ruler [khuruj min ta’at wali al-amr], distorting the reputation of the kingdom abroad [tashwih sum’at al mamlaka fil kharij], and writing a poem, although I don’t know what the specific crime was. The second time I saw the judge, perhaps eight months later, he sentenced me to seven years in prison.¹⁵⁴

Ghalib’s experience is similar. Ghalib told Human Rights Watch that he criticized the government on Al Jazeera in 1998, but was not arrested until October 2004, after he took part in a demonstration in Jeddah called by the UK-based Saudi dissident Sa’d al-Faqih. After 15 days in detention, a judge summarily sentenced him and six others to six weeks in prison because he “went beyond the limits of obedience to the ruler.”¹⁵⁵

In the case of Ali al-Dumaini, Abdullah al-Hamid, and Matrook al-Faleh, mentioned above in chapters III and V, five months after their arrest on March 16, 2004, the prosecution presented its charge sheet in the first court hearing. The undated charge sheet lists the three defendants and then accuses them of

doubting the approach of the ruler and the present entity of the state based on the application of the book [the Quran] and the Sunna [the Prophetic traditions] and of causing strife and justifying violence and terrorism, and of doubting the independence of the judiciary, and of deceiving the people.

The criminal charges, insofar as these can be discerned, appear to be

for resorting from time to time to issuing declarations and petitions and for trying through one way or another to obtain the greatest number of signatures from citizens and encouraging the adoption [of these publications] and their demands so that this orientation may start to resemble an arena in which these [people] compete as advisers to the citizens, but they are only a small group and these petitions have come to constitute a phenomenon offensive to the [Muslim] community, the people and the state … and they also gathered in the Fahd Kerouan Hotel in Riyadh on February 26, 2004, where they decided to have a following meeting on May 28, 2004.¹⁵⁶

One of the three defendants in the 2005 trial for writing and publicizing these reform petitions, Dr. Abdullah al-Hamid, and his brother ‘Isa al-Hamid, again faced charges in a Buraida court in September 2007, for carrying out their duties as lawyers toward their clients. Saudi intelligence forces had arrested Abdullah and ‘Isa al-Hamid on July 19, together with a group of five women who had been peacefully demonstrating on July 16 in front of the intelligence prison for the speedy trial of their relatives. The mabahith arrested the Hamid brothers at the home of one of the demonstrators, Rima al-Juraish, in Buraida, capital of Qasim province, in the course of attempting to arrest al-Juraish. When Abdullah al-Hamid, who is the lawyer for Juraish’s detained husband, Muhammad al-Hamili, demanded to see an arrest and a search warrant, the mabahith also arrested him and his brother `Isa, before breaking down the door to al-Juraish’s home and arresting her. The mabahith arrested four other women who had demonstrated with al-Juraish: Manal al-`Umairini, Badriya al-`Umairini, Afrah al-Fuhaid, and Ashwaq al-Fuhaid. They and the al-Hamid brothers were released after a few days.¹⁵⁷ One month later, other family members held a similar demonstration, and the mabahith arrested them and Muhammad al-Bajadi, a human rights activist.

At trial on September 8, Abdullah and ‘Isa al-Hamid faced charges of trying to enter a police cordon around al-Juraish’s house and of encouraging the women to demonstrate. Observers at the trial reported that the judge at the Buraida Summary Court, Ibrahim Abdullah al-Hasani, declared the first session to be closed to the public.¹⁵⁸ The court found the al-Hamid brothers guilty on November 7, 2007, and sentenced Abdullah to six, and ‘Isa to four months in prison.¹⁵⁹

Detention without charge

A mabahith officer arrested Salah on February 21, 2007, and took him to the counter-drugs department on Salah al-Din Street in the Malaz quarter of Riyadh, where he remained in a holding facility together with persons accused of narcotics offenses. There were no interrogations or any accusations of Salah’s involvement in narcotics. According to Salah, the arresting officer told him that “there was a secret order from the Interior [Ministry] saying I needed to be arrested and transferred to the drugs prison ... [because] I was responsible for gathering signatures in Riyadh for the February 2 petition.”¹⁶⁰ Salah was referring to a petition asking King Abdullah to institute constitutional and political change. The petition was opened for signature and made public on February 2. Salah said he had received 15 phone calls from persons authorizing him to submit their signature. Since his arrest he twice went on hunger strike, leading to his hospitalization, demanding to be charged and presented to a judge or released.¹⁶¹

In another case, Jamil maintained that security forces arrested him without a warrant in October 2003, did not inform him of the reasons for his arrest, and did not charge him with a criminal act.¹⁶² After his release, Jamil sued the mabahith for wrongful arrest. In his filing to the Board of Grievances, he noted that a representative of the mabahith had presented a memorandum to the Board in which he justified the arrest by stating that Jamil had

engaged in acts violating the security of the country which points to his support for persons opposed to the government, such as when he participated in the demonstration that Sa’d al-Faqih [the UK-based dissident] called for … and he wrote the word “reform” on the market fair in the Manfuha quarter, and papers and publications were found in his possession that support the demonstration which shows that he has retained his previous thinking.¹⁶³

Jamil told Human Rights Watch that since he initiated his lawsuit against the mabahith, the agency stalled the case by failing to appear in court.¹⁶⁴

Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) is an authorized law enforcement agency in Saudi Arabia. In 2005 the CPVPV’s 5,000 religious police officers, together with 5,000 volunteers, carried out 400,000 arrests.¹⁶⁵ Since 2006 these agents, who do not wear uniform, must wear identifying badges and may only make arrests when accompanied by a regular policeman.¹⁶⁶ A 1980 law empowers these religious police, who answer only to the prime minister (currently the king), to arrest, detain, and interrogate persons for undefined criminal offenses. A 1981 royal decree appears to curb some of these powers by prohibiting the religious police from holding and interrogating suspects at their centers, and in 2006 the Saudi government appeared to go further by declaring that religious police must not detain or interrogate suspects or violate the sanctity of private homes.¹⁶⁷ However, on July 1, 2007, Interior Minister Prince Nayef reaffirmed the 1981 decree, thereby apparently contradicting and rolling back the prohibition from the previous year on entering private homes. Moreover, the president of the CPVPV, Shaikh al-Ghaith, told Human Rights Watch in December 2006 that his agents can enter private homes if they learn of a serious crime in progress.¹⁶⁸

The 1980 law lists the CPVPV’s vaguely defined tasks as “guiding and advising people to observe the religious duties prescribed by Islamic Sharia, and … to preclude committing [acts] proscribed and prohibited [by Sharia], or adopting bad habits and traditions or taboo [sic] heresies.”¹⁶⁹ The law does not contain a classification of which acts of commission or omission are criminal, meriting arrest and investigation, and which behavior falls into the “guiding and advising” duties of the force.

The 1980 law’s Executive Regulations, passed eight years later, are more explicit about what behavior the CPVPV monitors: Mixing of the two sexes and women adorning themselves excessively; transgendered behavior; men’s advances toward women; saying obscenities; disrupting prayer by playing media near mosques; practicing or displaying non-Muslim faiths or disrespecting Islam; displaying or selling media contrary to Islam, including pornography, the Christian cross, the star of David, pictures of Buddha or the like; producing, distributing, or consuming alcohol; committing or facilitating lewdness, including adultery, homosexuality, and gambling; adhering to heresies by venerating places or celebrating events inconsistent with Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxis; practicing magic for money; and shortchanging customers. The CPVPV also monitors halal slaughter houses; exhibitions; and women’s tailors.¹⁷⁰ Only few of these acts could, in serious cases, conceivably legitimately amount to criminal offenses under human rights law. Such cases could include sexual harassment, public disturbance, or pornography.

A Riyadh-based lawyer told Human Rights Watch of a case of a woman he was representing whom the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had arrested in mid-2006 in a shopping mall and accused of “illegal mixing.” Men and women routinely mix in shopping malls in Saudi Arabia. The CPVPV released her after detaining her for a few hours, but six months later her mother received a summons for her daughter to the local Institution for Girls, where a judge swiftly charged the daughter with illegal mixing and sentenced her to a short prison term and lashes. CPVPV head Shaikh al-Ghaith told Human Rights Watch that, in his view, Islam prohibits the public mixing of men and women only if they do so “with the intention to corrupt [bi gharadh al-fasad].”¹⁷¹ In this case, however, the judge did not inquire about or prove possible intentions of the woman, but merely relied on the CPVPV report attesting to mixing.

Besides lacking a sound legal basis for its interventions that does not violate the exercise of human rights, the CPVPV does not observe the Law of Criminal Procedure when arresting, detaining, and interrogating suspects. As already noted, Shaikh al-Ghaith told Human Rights Watch that CPVPV agents can enter private homes if they learn of a serious crime in progress.¹⁷² In May 2007 CPVPV agents stormed a Riyadh home without a warrant in search of illegal alcohol, and beat one person, Salman al-Huraisi to death. CPVPV members are facing criminal charges of murder and abuse of power in this and two other, separate incidents, reportedly for the first time in their history.¹⁷³ On November 28, 2007, the General Court of Riyadh found two CPVPV members not guilty of killing al-Huraisi.¹⁷⁴ (For developments in one of the other cases, the death of Ahmad al-Buluwi following beatings during interrogation, see chapter VII, section “Appointing a Lawyer.”)

The CPVPV previously meted out summary punishments (15 lashes or three days’ imprisonment) for a wide range of infractions, under article 4b) of the 1980 law, but it appears to have generally desisted in this.¹⁷⁵

Detention Beyond Completion of Sentence

Saudi law tasks the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecutions with inspecting prisons and reviewing the files of prisoners. Prosecutors have the power and duty to release prisoners for whose detention there are no legal grounds.

Article 3(f) the Bureau’s law lists its duties as

Controlling and inspecting prisons, detention houses and any places wherein are executed punitive verdicts, listening to the complaints of prisoners and detainees, and verifying the legitimacy of their imprisonment or detention, the legitimacy [legality] of their remaining therein pursuant to the termination of their sentences, and taking the necessary actions to release whomsoever imprisoned or detained without a legitimate reason.”¹⁷⁶

Prosecutors also have a duty to inform the minister of interior of any official wrongdoing and to issue a biannual report on the situation of prisons.¹⁷⁷ Officials accused of wrongdoing can face disciplinary proceedings by their own department, but in practice the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecutions and the Bureau of Supervision and Investigations within the Board of Grievances rarely initiate criminal proceedings against officials (see Part 4, chapters XI and XII).

Prison oversight and review of detention

Saudi law obliges the prison authorities to complete the procedures necessary for the release of a prisoner whose sentence finishes. Article 21 of the Imprisonment and Detention Law of May 16, 1978, states, “The [prison’s] administrative procedures shall not delay the release of the prisoner or detainee on the fixed date.”¹⁷⁸ Ahmad al-Salim, the secretary-general (wakil) of the Ministry of Interior, told Human Rights Watch that “there is no tribunal in the Ministry of Interior and the administrative governor has no right to prolong a sentence or order an arrest.” He further explained,

We put checks in place for prisoners and … we have internal inspection mechanisms, for example, the head of the Prosecution and Investigation Department investigates these cases. They go to the prisons, they make sure that no one goes or has to stay in prison after they’re supposed to be out. So no one stays in prison for no reason.¹⁷⁹

The Office for Prison Supervision and Execution of Sentences in the public prosecutor’s office is responsible for “insuring the legality of [prisoners’] imprisonment or detention and the legality of their remaining in prison or the detention centers after the expiry of the period, taking necessary steps to release those imprisoned or detained without a legitimate cause.”¹⁸⁰ Prison officials have questioned the effectiveness of the Prison Supervision Office. The warden of al-Ha’ir Correctional Facility, Zhafir Sa’id al-Haqbani, told Human Rights Watch that a visit to the prison by the National Society for Human Rights in 2004 was helpful in discovering arbitrary detentions. “We had two visits by the national human rights commission. Twenty doctors [educated persons] came and they found cases of people held beyond the end of their sentences.”¹⁸¹

The prison administration apparently does not ask the Prison Supervision Office to issue orders for the release of prisoners whose sentences finish. Ali al-Harithi, the director of Saudi Arabia’s prison service, told Human Rights Watch that his service is responsible for releasing a prisoner after he or she has finished the sentence: “If a prisoner has reached the end of his sentence, we release him. We have the verdict.”¹⁸² This appears equally ineffective: Two prisoners told Human Rights Watch that the files of an inmate in al-Ha’ir prison had been used to prop open a window of the prison administration and could therefore not be found for three years.¹⁸³ Another prisoner told Human Rights Watch that “If the guard goes on vacation for a month, your file is with him and no one will touch it so nothing happens,” and you cannot be released.¹⁸⁴

During Human Rights Watch’s visit to al-Ha’ir Correctional Facility in November 2006, the prison authorities showed Human Rights Watch the Exemplary Wing 18, for prisoners of good behavior. In private, unsupervised interviews, a group of prisoners and detainees told Human Rights Watch that none of them could verify the length of their sentences.¹⁸⁵ Nizar, a 22-year-old inmate, told Human Rights Watch that he has been in prison since November 11, 2003, on a three-year sentence, which, according to the hijri calendar,¹⁸⁶ should then have expired on September 28, 2006. Article 24 of the Imprisonment and Detention Law states that “The prisoner or detainee shall be released before the noon of the day following the day of termination of punishment or detention period.” Nizar said he could not challenge his continued detention because he had no proof of the length of his sentence.¹⁸⁷

Wing 18 inmate ’Umar told Human Rights Watch that, by his calculations, his four-year sentence for car theft and kidnapping should have been completed in March 2006. He said he never received a written verdict.¹⁸⁸ Twenty-four-year-old Rashid said a judge sentenced him to six months and 150 lashes for being in a fight with others, sentence started January 21, 2006, but 10 months later he remained in detention.¹⁸⁹

In a separate interview, Yahya, a man from Buraida told us that he personally knew of the cases of two prisoners, one of them his relative, whom the authorities had not yet set free despite having served their sentences. He said that as of December 2006, Fawzi had been in Buraida’s mabahith prison for four years and ten months, despite having received a sentence of only one-and-a-half years, and Lutfi had been in al-Ha’ir’s mabahith prison around five years, despite having received a sentence of only one-and-a-half years.¹⁹⁰

The period of pretrial detention is included in the sentence.¹⁹¹ Sentences may be shortened by memorizing the Quran: Prison Director al-Harithi explained to Human Rights Watch the formula whereby a prisoner’s sentence is reduced by up to one-half for memorizing the whole Quran, by one-quarter for memorizing half the Quran, down to a minimum reduction of one-sixth of the sentence for memorizing one-third (10 chapters) of the Quran.¹⁹² There is also the possibility for parole: under Saudi law the minister of interior can approve parole after the prisoner has served three-quarters of the sentence, but a minimum of nine months, and if he or she has displayed good behavior, provided that a release will not jeopardize public safety. However, it is not permitted to grant “release under probation [parole]” unless the convicted person has fulfilled all his or her financial obligations resulting from the crime he or she was found guilty of.¹⁹³ Al-Harithi told Human Rights Watch that the prison service forms a committee to decide a prisoner’s parole status one month before three-quarters of the sentence are up.¹⁹⁴

‘Asim said he received a six-year sentence in 2002 for stealing cigarettes worth US$27,000. He believed his sentence had been reduced by a total of three years—18 months for good behavior and another 18 months because the injured party had dropped all claims. He also told Human Rights Watch that he had memorized 15 chapters of the Quran, for which ‘Asim should have received a reduction of one-quarter of his sentence, or two years. If ‘Asim received any combination of the three reductions he claimed to be eligible for, his sentence was complete at the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit in November 2006. ‘Asim called Human Rights Watch in January 2007 to say he had just been released.¹⁹⁵

Other reasons for arbitrary detention beyond the completion of a sentence include a lack of response by the embassies of foreign nationals. ‘Adil, age 23, said that police arrested him on March 15, 2006, and that, after waiting for three months, “The judge sentenced me to three months and 30 lashes. I have had the lashes. They tell me I need to be deported but when I spoke to the Yemeni embassy they refused, because I cannot prove my nationality.”¹⁹⁶ ’Adil, who lived all his life in Saudi Arabia and whose Yemeni father died when he was young, said he has no documents to prove his Yemeni nationality. Hussein al-Sharif, the head of the Mekka branch of the National Society for Human Rights, which includes Jeddah, told Human Rights Watch, “The problem often is that detainees have no papers, and the embassies are not cooperating. The solution may be to start fingerprinting arrivals, or require a bank deposit. In recent months, 16,000 [foreigners] have been arrested and 12,000 deported.”¹⁹⁷

Nuri, another prisoner, told Human Rights Watch that “a lot of Yemenis are stuck here past the end of their sentences because they don’t have tickets” to go to Yemen. “The Yemeni embassy only comes every four or five months and then they talk to a lot of people and say they are studying the situation.”¹⁹⁸

International law does not prohibit administrative detention, such as for foreign detainees awaiting deportation, but requires the state to demonstrate that such detention is necessary and justified in the circumstances. According to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, “detention should not continue beyond the period for which the State can provide appropriate justification […], such as the likelihood of absconding and lack of cooperation, which may justify detention for a period. Without such factors detention may be considered arbitrary, even if entry was illegal.”¹⁹⁹

Mansur, a Yemeni detainee in al-Ha’ir prison told Human Rights Watch that he had been in prison “for 11 months… The judge sentenced me to nine months in jail for fighting, but I’m still here. I don’t know when they will let me out. They want to deport me. The [prison authorities] tell me I have to receive 50 extra lashes because I’m from Yemen.”²⁰⁰ This man had been in pretrial detention for eight months before he saw a judge.

Lashes are usually administered in sessions of up to 50 lashes and not more than once a week. A group of prisoners in al-Ha’ir complained of being detained arbitrarily because the flogging stipulated in the verdict had not yet been administered. One prisoner said “I have finished my sentence but not the floggings so I have not been released. I don't know why I haven’t been flogged yet.”²⁰¹ Anwar, age 20, told Human Rights Watch he was “afraid … not [to] be released when my sentence ends in 20 days because the lashing will take so long and they still haven’t started.”²⁰² He said he had received a sentence of six months in prison and 250 lashes for assault. (Human Rights Watch opposes all forms of lashing and corporal punishment as cruel and degrading.)

Arrests Without Warrants

Saudi law contains several provisions specifying the authority ordering the arrest, the person(s) to be arrested and the reasons for the arrest. Article 35 of Saudi Arabia’s Law of Criminal Procedure states, “In cases other than flagrante delicto, no person shall be arrested or detained except on the basis of an order from the competent authority.” Article 103 of the LCP gives the investigator (prosecutor) powers of arrest, but fails to define the conditions necessary for issuing an arrest warrant, requiring only that “investigation circumstances warrant it”—such as when a person fails to appear voluntarily (Article 104) or where the prosecutor considers a wanted person to be a flight risk (Article 107), “even if the incident is of such kind for which the accused should not be detained.”²⁰³

Among the more than 60 detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed, we found only one case where law enforcement officers issued an arrest warrant. A former detainee gave Human Rights Watch a copy of this warrant, an Order to Arrest and Appear [Amr qabd wa ihdar], which bears an official stamp notarizing it as a “photocopy according to the original.” Khalid bin Suwaid, of the Bureau for Investigation and Public Prosecutions, signed the warrant, which specifies personal details of the person to be arrested, briefly discusses the crime attributed to him and the legal basis for the warrant (unspecified “provisions of Islamic Sharia”), and reproduces several articles of the Regulation against Forgery and of the LCP. This warrant, however, is not dated. Saudi law specifies that warrants are valid for execution up to three months after the date of the prosecutor issuing them.²⁰⁴

On February 2, 2007, the mabahith, listed in Article 26 of the Code of Criminal Procedure among legally authorized law enforcement agencies, arrested 10 persons in Jeddah without an arrest warrant, searched the house of at least one of the detainees without a search warrant, did not disclose the whereabouts of one of the detainees, and denied visits of the families and lawyers of those detained.²⁰⁵ Following the arrest of the 10 men, Ministry of Interior Spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansur al-Turki gave only a brief statement on the cases, indicating that some had been arrested on suspicion of funding terrorism.²⁰⁶ Two months later, officials suggested that the media was misrepresenting the detainees as reform advocates, but did not further characterize the charges pursuant to which they had been arrested, reiterating only that the suspicion involved recruiting fighters to send to Iraq.²⁰⁷

In a case of sexual harassment that has become known as the Renaissance Tunnel [Nafaq al-Nahda] case, the Criminal Investigations Branch arrested at least two men in Riyadh without a warrant. One of the arrested men, Turki, told Human Rights Watch that investigators at the police station said to him, “You’ll find out why you’re here soon,” but that instead of informing him of the charges, they started beating him. Another defendant in the case said that officers arrested him without a warrant and, a few hours later, when a friend arrived to support his alibi, they arrested the friend too.²⁰⁸ (For the outcome of this case, see Chapter VII, section “Reasonable Doubt.”)

Another young defendant told Human Rights Watch that on September 3, 2006, police in al-Malaz, a district in Riyadh, summoned and detained him about an incident involving alleged homosexual relations two years earlier. “The prosecutor came and always said tomorrow, tomorrow, you will be released… and ‘repent before God,’ but instead I was sent to al-Ha’ir [prison].”²⁰⁹

Husain, a Yemeni detainee in al-Ha’ir prison told Human Rights Watch that a few weeks after coming to Saudi Arabia he got into a fight. After police arrested him, they kept him at the police station. He told Human Rights Watch that he confessed to having been in the fight but, out of the blue, “they accused me of sodomy.”²¹⁰

Article 11 of the Law of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice obliges CPVPV agents to “seize the perpetrators of proscribed acts, or those accused of them, or those negligent of the Islamic Sharia duties, and [to] interrogate them.”²¹¹ Article 9 of the Executive Regulations of that law obliges CPVPV officials to “conduct seizure and arrest pursuant to the laws, orders, decisions and instructions pertaining to criminal procedures.”²¹² CPVPV members also detain suspects without warrants in cases other than in flagrante delicto.²¹³ On December 19, 2006, CPVPV members arrested Najla ‘Umar, a Sudanese woman, from a private residence in the Salam district in Jeddah and took her to the Shimaliya CPVPV station for eight hours, until 3 a.m. She was not able to inform her husband of her whereabouts until the CPVPV later took her to a police station. After three days at the police station, with no visits allowed, prosecutor Salih al-Saidalani interviewed her, but did not issue formal charges. During the interrogation it emerged that CPVPV members had apparently arrested ‘Umar because she had been leading a Sudanese women’s self-help microcredit operation, regularly receiving money from 11 contributors who would later be eligible to receive small loans.

In another case, more than 50 CPVPV members and a large contingent of police arrested without warrants a group of families comprising 53 Indians, Pakistanis, and a Syrian at a privately-rented rest house in Jeddah, after Friday prayers on December 29, 2006. Saudi authorities eventually deported all of those arrested, although most were legal residents. CPVPV members verbally informed the group’s members that they had arrested them because they were Ahmadi Muslims, but the group’s members never saw arrest warrants, faced a formal charge, or saw a judge before their deportation.²¹⁴ Article 10 of the Executive Regulations of the CPVPV law requires its officials to record the reasons for arrest in a register kept at the CPVPV centers,²¹⁵ but the only reason given was that “the arrests of the 56 individuals … took place in a public facility and exceeded the government’s definition of private worship.”²¹⁶

In September 2006 CPVPV members arrested Khalid after he challenged Commission agents who entered his café to inspect the mobile phones and identification papers of male and female customers sitting in the secluded upstairs family section. Khalid told Human Rights Watch that he asked them, “Who are you? Is there someone who is wanted? I can help!” He explained that this was the first time he had intervened in what had been repeated “raids” on his café. He said they were bad for business and he had tired of them. Khalid’s questions evidently did not sit well with Commission agents, who told him, “We’ll take you, too,” and dragged him to their car. At the police station, an officer told him that the Commission members had accused him of insulting public officials. After waiting for 12 hours, the officer asked him a few questions before letting him go.²¹⁷ A judge sentenced Khalid on November 21, 2006, to flogging (see below).

Also in November 2006, Commission agents arrested a university student and her friend in the apartment of a man to whom she had brought her guitar to fix. The Commission members accused her of leading a prostitution ring, although they had no evidence to back up their accusation. The head of the police station to which the Commission members eventually transferred her informed her influential father of her arrest eight hours later. Her father then managed to have her released through the intervention of Riyadh’s governor, Prince Salman bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud.²¹⁸

Private Claims and Arbitrary Detention

Private claims are law suits that one individual brings against another. The state acts as an adjudicator, but is not formally a party. Saudi prosecutors decide on the admissibility of private claims, and judges hear claims and decide on their merits. In Saudi Arabia, private claims can result in prison for criminal actions or for debt.

In practice in Saudi Arabia, persons are not equal under the law in private claims. Wealthy or socially influential persons can skew court proceedings in their favor, giving private citizens significant powers to detain those they bear a grudge against. The chief problem lies in the court’s decisions to detain defendants before and during trial, which can drag on for years before reaching a final verdict on the mere basis of a person’s claim. These detainees thus endure what amounts to criminal sanction for as yet unproven acts. Isolation in detention and a lack of financial means also impinge on their ability to defend themselves by seeking legal advice or preparing evidence for their own defense.

Private claims

The codification of aspects of Sharia in the Law of Criminal Procedure allows private claims by individuals to be handled as a matter of criminal procedure. Private citizens can sue other private citizens for injuries arising from criminal acts, with resultant criminal sanction being imposed. Private claims may call for criminal proceedings, such as in locations without a public prosecutor, where citizens can ask a judge to criminally prosecute defendants for material damages they sustained (Article 17). Prosecutors may even start criminal action in cases involving a private right of action without a private complaint if doing so “will serve the public interest.”²¹⁹ A prosecutor has three days to determine the admissibility of a private claim by “whoever suffers harm in consequence of a crime,”²²⁰ but the law does not specify criteria for admissibility or define harm.

The right to file private claims only lapses in two instances: upon a court’s final verdict, or if the claimant grants a pardon (Article 23). In all other circumstances the private right can be invoked at any time and is hereditary, so that the children or other heirs of the damaged party may initiate or continue a suit at any time.

In accordance with Sharia rules, the holder of the private right, not the state, can insist on the execution of court-ordered punishment, accept monetary compensation, or issue a pardon. It remains unclear whether a plaintiff, acting as a private “prosecutor,” can ask the judge to impose a prison sentence or corporal punishment. In practice, defendants convicted in a private criminal case remain in prison until the plaintiff issues a pardon or until he or she fulfills the conditions of a court-ordered punishment, such as the payment of damages (see Appendix).

Saudi legal practice only provides minimal protections against frivolous law suits with drastic consequences for the sued party. Suitors must fill out a complaint sheet describing the harm suffered and listing the claims they are making on the other party. In more than 10 cases Human Rights Watch investigated, judges accepted claims in the suits at face value without probing actual harm suffered, leading to the preventive detention of those sued. Foreign workers face particular risk of a suit, and are often imprisoned allegedly as a “preventive” measure as a result of a suit that is lodged with a court but not speedily adjudicated.

In a drawn out family dispute over which of four brothers was to become the legal guardian over the affairs and wealth of their incapacitated father and their mother (who under Saudi legal practice cannot discharge of her own affairs without a male legal guardian), Ali challenged his brother Muhammad’s claim to guardianship and sued for his right to continue living in the family home. Ali told Human Rights Watch what happened in court in 2005:

In court, the judge said, “I’ll imprison you for one year and sentence you to lashes and order you out of the house if you don’t drop the claim.” I said, “I won’t,” and went to prison on August 28, 2005, and got out September 9, 2005, on [my brother] Salih’s [personal] guarantee.²²¹

Ali said he believed his brother Muhammad was able to have the judge charge him with breaking into his own home and imprisoned because the brother and the judge were on good terms.

In another case, 57-year-old Sulaiman, a Palestinian Syrian who had worked in Saudi Arabia for 22 years, returned from a vacation in Syria after learning that his sponsor had filed a complaint against him. Upon his return, police from al-‘Ulaya quarter in Riyadh immediately arrested him, keeping him for 30 days in their police station before transferring him to al-Ha’ir Correctional Facility in November 2005. Sulaiman told Human Rights Watch that only 10 days after his arrest did he learn that his sponsor and employer accused him of stealing cigarettes. Sulaiman continued to describe what happened during the trial, which started in March 2006:

The judge did not establish the amount of money allegedly embezzled [from stealing cigarettes], and the witnesses for the plaintiff contradicted themselves, saying sometimes 300,000, sometimes 400,000 or 500,000 [Riyals]. The witnesses did not appear in court. Even the plaintiff changed his mind and raised the amount he wanted back from me from 500,000 to 1,500,000 [Riyals].²²²

After going on hunger strike in May 2007, Sulaiman was able to prompt a response from the authorities. A new judge took over and promptly dismissed the case. But Sulaiman will be free to leave prison only when he finds a new sponsor. When we met him he had already been detained for almost two years.

Imprisonment for debt

Saba Habachy wrote in a 1962 article about the status of property and contracts in Islamic law,

For several centuries, private property in Islam was so well protected that a debtor’s person rather than his assets answered for his debts. A Muslim judge could order seizure and imprisonment of a recalcitrant debtor to force him to pay his debts, but he could not order foreclosure of his proprietary or other rights of monetary value to satisfy his unpaid creditors.²²³

Consequently, a common experience of detention following a private claim is imprisonment for debt.²²⁴ Saudi law specifically allows for the imprisonment of a debtor. The law on claiming personal rights provides that if a debtor fails to fulfill his or her obligations “he shall be imprisoned, unless the creditor accepts to [grant him] respite, or [to] release him.”²²⁵ Article 230 of the Law on Procedure before Sharia Courts (2000) affirms the possibility of detention for debt: “If the convicted [party] refuses to execute the judgment issued against him for a reason other than insolvency, and if it has proved impossible to execute [it] on his properties, then the party in whose favor the judgment [was issued] may request the detention of the convicted [party] by force of a petition which he raises to the competent administrative ruler.” The ruler can order such detention up to “10 days,” after which the case reverts to the courts to decide “whether to continue his detention.”²²⁶

The law makes an exception for proven insolvency, in which case “it shall be obligatory to release [the debtor] and abstain from his prosecution,” unless the incurred debt is the result of “crimes he has intentionally committed.”²²⁷ The civil procedure code reaffirms that where a sentenced party refused to execute a judgment “by reason of insolvency, [he] shall be referred to the court that had issued the judgment for the determination of whether or not he is insolvent.”²²⁸ A contributor to a website discussing Saudi and other Arab laws clarified that for a judge to recognize insolvency, one of the concerned parties has to submit a motion to court, which will then determine whether conditions for insolvency are met. Debts may be reinstated, and recognition of insolvency lifted, at any future time (see Appendix).²²⁹

These articles make clear that there is no provision for indefinite detention of a debtor who is unable to pay his debts. Yet detention can become open-ended after the adjudication of the claim if the debtor is unable to settle the claim. Hamad Jarba, the deputy chief prosecutor of Saudi Arabia responsible for prison supervision, told Human Rights Watch that sometimes prisoners remain in prison after serving their sentences because they have not yet paid their private debt, which was the source of the sentence in the first place.²³⁰ Such imprisonment amounts to arbitrary detention, is akin to debt bondage, and is not permitted under international law.

In one case we discovered, a prisoner had received a sentence for causing a traffic accident, but remained imprisoned beyond the expiration of the sentence due to his inability to pay the damages the court awarded the injured party. At the time Human Rights Watch spoke to him, this person had spent four months beyond the end of his six-month prison term.²³¹ Imprisonment for debt also applies to debt incurred as result of court-awarded fines. Ibrahim told Human Rights Watch that, after being jailed following a private claim against him, he remained imprisoned after the court decided to fine him $135,000 for “working for a person who is not his sponsor.”²³² He has remained in prison for 11 years because he is unable to pay that amount.²³³

Journalist Ahmad al-Jumai’a reported the case of a person who in February 2006 had remained imprisoned for five months for owing US$32,400, despite having obtained a certificate of insolvency. The newspaper reported that this person remained in detention even after his creditor had received the amount of money they privately agreed on.²³⁴

Human Rights Watch has received several complaints since December 2006 from persons—all foreign nationals—who said that Saudi authorities had imprisoned them on the basis of claims by their employers that they had misappropriated company monies. Human Rights Watch’s report in 2004, “Bad Dreams: Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia,” documented how employers use threats of imprisonment to withhold wages.²³⁵ One prisoner told Human Rights Watch in March 2007 that he had been in jail for nine years because he was unable to pay the equivalent of US$350,000 the court stipulated as his share of $1.08 million worth of construction materials his Saudi employer alleged that he and three others had stolen from him.²³⁶

Until his deportation on February 21, 2007, Ravi, an Indian national, had spent six years in prison in Jeddah. His sponsor and employer had him arrested in August 2001 for allegedly embezzling money from the hydrolic heavy equipment spare parts store where he worked as supervisor, after Ravi refused to sign fraudulent accounts. The appeals court appointed a different judge after the first verdict in favor of the sponsor, and Ravi counter-sued his employer for back wages from the time of his arrest. The second court appointed accountants who calculated that, in fact, the sponsor owed Ravi $60,600, but the judge reduced the amount to $14,270. Ravi appealed the verdict, insisting on the larger amount, but remained in detention throughout due to his employer’s initial suit for embezzling money. The authorities summarily deported Ravi before the final hearing, due to take place on March 12, 2007.²³⁷

Ameer, another Indian national, when we met him had been in prison since his arrest on October 18, 1999. Judge Abd al-Latif al-Abd al-Latif found him guilty of embezzling $105,300 from his sponsor Mahmud, at whose ‘Uthman Company for Travel and Tourism he worked, and sentenced him to one year in prison. After serving almost eight years in prison on a one-year sentence, Ameer remained in jail. He had no resources to pay and did not know what means he could employ to obtain his release.²³⁸ An Indian consular official told Human Rights Watch that the consulate had forwarded letters to the court on behalf of Ameer with official affidavits following an investigation in India that confirmed that he was insolvent. The Indian official said the consulate had not received any reply.²³⁹