Saudi Arabia: Abdullah Al-Souidani held incommunicado, risk of torture

On 20 May 2009 Alkarama sent a communication to the Special Rapporteur on Torture, asking him to urgently intervene with the Saudi authorities, due to the risk of torture people run when held incommunicado. 

Abdullah Mohammed Ali Al-Salem Souidani, born in 1974, lives with his family near Ain Khaled in Doha. 

He was arrested on the morning of 9 May 2009 by the Saudi intelligence services (Al-Mabahit) at the Seloua border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia while traveling by car. 

According to information gathered by his family, the officers who arrested him did not present him with a judicial warrant nor did they inform him of the reasons for his arrest. He was then taken to an unknown destination.

After many steps, especially with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, his parents managed to discover that he is being held incommunicado at the prison of Al-Hayr near Riyadh. It has no possibility of contact with the outside world and Saudi authorities refuse to give his family any information on the reasons for his arrest or his current situation. His family is particularly worried about the outcome, considering the risk of torture faced by prisoners in Saudi Arabia. 

Akarama recalls Resolution 1997/38 § 20 of the Commission on Human Rights United Nations which considers detention (when it is prolonged), as constituting in itself an act of torture. 

The Special Rapporteur on Torture has himself called for a total ban on incommunicado detention, stressing that "torture is most frequently practiced during incommunicado detention. It should be made illegal and persons held incommunicado should be released immediately. "