Articles 4 and 70 of the Saudi Arabian Criminal Procedure Code guarantee the accused the right to seek counsel at all stages of investigation and trial, and also prohibit officials from limiting access to a lawyer. Article 13 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights guarantees the right to fair trial and the right for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. However, scholar and religious activist Yusuf al-Ahmad was detained by the security forces on the day after he published a video on his Twitter, in which he appealed to king Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz to release people who were imprisoned without a charge. Some of them were thrown behind bars for seven or more years without trial. Founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website Raif Badawi was even under the threat of execution after he was charged with apostasy, but after the blogger managed to prove he was Muslim, his punishment was commuted to “only” 7 years in prison and 600 lashes.
The Saudi Arabian regime relies firstly on censorship and closure of its segment of the Internet space and persecution of civic activists along with journalists. This tendency can be easily revealed after analyzing the latest court trials and sentences in this country.
In 2008, “the Land of the Two Holy Mosques” [Saudi Arabia’s unofficial name. – Author] founded the Specialized Criminal Court for hearing cases labeled as “terrorism.” However, more and more of these cases remind persecutions of peaceful activists who try to encourage the society to participate in political and religious dialogs. Forms of their activities cannot be classified as radical: they are online petitions to release “the prisoners of conscience” or open criticism of the ruling regime aired by any TV channel. However, such activists receive the most severe punishments.
According to the Human Rights Watch, trials of the case of the famous journalist, writer, and human rights defender Mikhlif Alshammari started in March, 2013. He was tried on seven charges. In particular, he was accused of an attempt to distort the reputation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, participation in suspicious organizations, production and distribution of materials on the Internet that can disturb public order and offend religious values, stirring up hatred and inciting the public against various governmental institutions of the country, disparaging the bases of religious teaching and portraying them on international television in such a way that is viewed as a call for separatism and hatred. The judges used only articles published by Alshammari and his interviews as evidence. However, according to the copy of the indictment, it was not stated anywhere that his activity had resulted in violence.
Refusal to grant the right for attorney to the accused is also common practice in the judicial system. The case of one of the founders of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi is unprecedented in the democratic world and an ordinary occurrence for the totalitarian regime. In August 2011, members of the Association tried to be present at the trial of their leader. At first they did not find the courthouse, which was located at a nameless villa in the northern part of Obhour district in Jeddah. When they arrived and produced their legal warrant to represent al-Bejadi in court, a clerk told them that the judge refused to recognize their notarized document and stated instead that al-Bejadi wanted to defend himself. According to the Human Rights Watch, on the following day al-Bejadi told Mohammad al-Qahtani, co-founder of the ACPRA, in a telephone conversation from the prison that he was kept blindfolded in a truck near the court building and he was not even informed that attorneys had traveled a thousand kilometers from the capital of the Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, to protect his interests.
Lately, the government of the Land of the Two Holy Mosques has been purging the blogging sphere. In September 2011, the website of Al Jazeera channel notified that the police had arrested seven Facebook users on the basis of “inciting protests, illegal rallies, and breaching the loyalty to the king.” Bloggers are also accused of breaking the law on fighting cybercrime, which prohibits production and distribution of information “detrimental to the public order.” In reality, all these seven people just used their Facebook pages to display affection to the arrested Shia Sheikh and religious leader Tawfiq al-Amer, who publicly advocated the creation of the constitutional monarchy. Reuters quotes the religious affiliation in Saudi Arabia as the root of all problems [the majority of the population are followers of the conservative Sunni variety of Islam and constantly conflict with Shiites. – Author]. The bloggers spent a year and a half in a prison in Dammam. At the end of last April, the court announced the verdicts – from 5 to 10 years of imprisonment, and a prohibition to cross the border for an additional period.
Perhaps the most outrageous case this year was the one of Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website. It was discussed on channels CNN, BBC, CBS, Russia Today International, Fox News Channel, in newspapers The Times, Daily Mail, The New York Times, and on the website GlobalPost. Badawi was accused of apostasy because he had ventured to create a platform for discussing religious and political topics in 2008. The following year, he was not allowed to leave the country, and his business was blocked. But it was not enough, and Badawi had to go to jail and read the Islamic declaration of faith in order to avoid death sentence. Criminal court judge Faris al-Harbi sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for attacks on Islam and using his website to breach the law on cybercrime, which was passed in 2007. Al-Harbi declared that liberalism was equal to disbelief, and added two more years to the sentence for criticism of Islamic and Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice – in other words, religious police – in commentaries during television interviews. On top of that, Badawi was sentenced to 600 lashes for insulting the official state religion, Islam.
“The criticism of influential families and government is not tolerated in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. In most cases, the government responds with sentencing the critics to imprisonment according to the applicable laws,” comments Joe STORK, Human Rights Watch expert. “Social media became a mechanism that is used in actions of disobedience, but they did not become their cause by any means. In some cases, the regime replies with introduction of new laws against ‘cybercrimes,’ and mobilization of supporters of the ruling family, so they would oppose the social media. We reply when we can, but I am sure that some incidents that we have not even heard of have been taking place. Fight for freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia is something that must start from the inside. And it is the way it happens, albeit at a very slow pace. We also encourage representatives of other countries’ governments to publicly talk about these issues during conversations with representatives of Saudi Arabian government.
