On 30 August each year, the world celebrates the “International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.” This occasion coincides with the continued use of the crime of enforced disappearance by the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a systematic method. Saudi Arabia is considered as one of the countries that practice enforced disappearance systematically and continuously, with an official cover that secures the continuation of the policy of impunity, confirming the absence of an independent judiciary.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) documented the Saudi government's use of enforced disappearance as a prelude to torture and to extract confessions, and in many cases these confessions were used to issue sentences, including death sentences. Some detainees were also extrajudicially killed after being forcibly disappeared, such as the detainee Makki Al-Orayedh, who was killed as a result of torture.
Enforced disappearance is defined according to Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.
Saudi Arabia has not ratified this convention, which entered into force in 2010, aiming at preventing enforced disappearances and ensuring justice for survivors, victims, and their families, also aiming at disclosing the truth, and receiving appropriate compensation.
In addition to its non-ratification of the international convention, the flaws in its laws, especially the Law for Combatting Terrorism Crimes and Financing, provide an excuse to practice the crime of enforced disappearance, as Article 20 of the law allows the government to isolate the detainee from his family and the outside world for a period of ninety days if the interest of the investigation so requires, “and if the investigation requires a longer interdiction period, the matter shall be brought before the competent court to decide”.
The United Nations
The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances of the UN Human Rights Council bears witness to the Saudi violations in this regard, as it sent to Saudi Arabia from 2011 until August 2022, 12 cases which question Saudi Arabia on the fate of individuals who were subjected to enforced disappearance, in addition to questions about the use of the anti-terrorism law to justify enforced disappearances. The last of these correspondences is the correspondence sent on August 27, 2021, 3 days before the commemoration of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance, and related to the death row inmates at that time, Mohammed Al-Shakhouri and Asaad Shubbar, where the rapporteurs in the letter, including the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, expressed their concern about the death sentences issued against Al-Shakhouri and Shubbar, after the subjection of the latter two to an unfair trial based on confessions extracted under torture during enforced disappearance. The experts called on Saudi Arabia to lift the death sentences for these two convicts. Saudi Arabia responded to the letter on October 22, 2021, claiming that Al-Shakhouri and Shubbar had voluntarily admitted the charges against them, denying that they had been subjected to torture and enforced disappearance, claiming that the convicts had made several contacts with their families and friends and received several visits in accordance with the precautionary measures taken to limit the spread of Covid-19. The letter also justified the death sentences issued against Al-Shakhouri and Shubbar by claiming their involvement in terrorist acts. On March 12, 2022, Saudi Arabia executed these two young men, as part of the largest mass execution massacre during the reign of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, which affected 81 people. It is worth noting that the execution of Mohammed Al-Shakhouri and Asaad Shubbar, along with at least 39 other men, was based on accusations of several charges, including what is considered one of the most basic human rights in international law, such as attending protests.
On March 19, 2021, UN experts, the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and the Special Rapporteur on Torture, wrote to the Saudi government regarding the Saudi-Australian citizen, Dr. Osama Talal Abbas Al-Mahruqi, whom the Saudi authorities received from their Moroccan counterparts, who arrested him violently in Morocco - after arriving there for a family visit on February 8, 2021 - at the request of the Saudi authorities that was submitted to the Interpol, without submitting an arrest warrant. The letter indicated that no information has been available about the fate or whereabouts of Al-Mahruqi since March 13, 2021. The letter asked Saudi Arabia to provide complete information without delay on the fate and whereabouts of Al-Mahruqi, the conditions of his detention and the treatment he received, amid the possibility that he was subjected to torture. The letter also requested detailed information on the factual and legal grounds for his arrest and detention, as well as any official charges against him, and the legal provisions used to charge him. The complaint indicated that Al-Mahruqi worked as an associate professor at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah and as a consultant in international business and trade affairs at the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade in Saudi Arabia. In 2015, he was forced to leave his position as an advisor to the Saudi government, after the intimidation and harassment allegedly caused by his critical opinion, which may be the main reason behind his arrest.
Saudi Arabia responded to the letter on April 28, 2021, denying the information that Al-Mahruqi was forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily arrested, claiming that he was in the Riyadh detention center for the purpose of interrogation on charges related to car theft, claiming that there are no secret prisons in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia also denied that Al-Mahruqi was subjected to torture, stressing its commitment to local and international laws.
Persistent enforced disappearances
- Abdul Rahman al-Sadhan
On January 6, 2022, the family of the Saudi detainee, Abdul Rahman al-Sadhan, announced that contact with him had been interrupted again, amid the authorities' refusal to disclose any information about his situation, whereabouts, or conditions of detention. Al-Sadhan is a Saudi aid worker. He was arrested on March 12, 2018, from inside one of the offices of the Red Crescent in Riyadh and was subjected to enforced disappearance several times during his arrest. Al-Sadhan remained arbitrarily detained, as he was not brought before the court and no official charges were brought against him for three years, before being sentenced on April 5, 2021. Al-Sadhan was not allowed to retain a lawyer to legally represent him before the judiciary, and his family and himself did not knew the charges against him until a month before the issuance of the verdict. After more than three years of arbitrary detention, the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh issued a 20-year prison sentence and a 20-year travel ban on charges related to his online activity and expressing his opinion on Twitter. In October 2020, the appeal court upheld the ruling.
In addition to repeated enforced disappearances and unfair trials, al-Sadhan was subjected to torture, ill-treatment, and medical neglect.
- Turki al-Jasser
Since late 2019, journalist Turki Al-Jasser is still unaccounted for. Since the Saudi authorities arrested journalist Turki Al-Jasser on March 15, 2018, after obtaining information from the Twitter office in Dubai that he is the one who runs the anti-government account “Kashkool”, Al-Jasser has only been able to communicate with his family once, during which he made a phone call to his family at the end of December 2019, after 656 days of enforced disappearance. Since that date, there has been no news about him, amid the authorities' refusal to inform the family of his indictment file, or to allow them to know his news or the conditions of his detention, and they were not allowed to retain a lawyer to represent him legally. There is also unofficial information that he was killed in prison as a result of torture, without any official denial or confirmation.
- The Cleric Suleiman al-Dawish
The fate of the cleric Suleiman al-Dawish is still unknown for more than 5 years. Al-Dawish was last seen in April 2017, when he was detained in Al-Ha'ir prison in Riyadh. An official admitted his arrest on charges of stirring up public opinion without giving any details. It is believed that he was arrested based on tweets that the Saudi government deemed offensive to King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After his disappearance, the family went to the official authorities to find out his whereabouts, such as the notorious General Investigation Prison, as well as the Royal Court, to no avail. When the Royal Court was asked a second time, the son was arrested for 15 days.
- Ahmed al-Mughassil
In August 2015, the Saudi government announced the arrest of Ahmed al-Mughassil in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after 6 years of not being able to communicate with him or know his whereabouts. Although Saudi Arabia announced the news of the arrest, it did not officially announce the place of his detention, or the charges he faces. His fate remains unknown for more than 7 years.
- The Lebanese Engineer Ali Mazyad
Engineer Ali Mazyad - who holds Lebanese citizenship - is still among the forcibly disappeared since his arrest a year ago. Mazyad has been working in Saudi Arabia for more than 18 years. On August 8, 2021, Mazyad's family suddenly lost contact with him, and after communicating with eyewitnesses, they knew that 7 men in civilian clothes entered his house in Riyadh and took him with them after a thorough search and confiscation of electronic devices. The family, through Mazyad's friends in Riyadh, tried to find out his whereabouts, through the police station, to no avail. The family contacted the Lebanese embassy in Riyadh. After several official correspondences, the family received unofficial information that Mazyad is being held by the State Security for security reasons, without any additional information. Although a year has passed since his disappearance, he has not communicated with his family, and no official body in Saudi Arabia has contacted them.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights believes that the Saudi government uses enforced disappearance for various reasons. While it uses it in many cases as a prelude to torture with the aim of extracting confessions, it uses it for retaliatory motives as it refuses to disclose definitively the status and location of the forcibly disappeared person, and it also uses it to intimidate society and families and to kill opinion-holders extrajudicially.
ESOHR asserts that Saudi Arabia, through its practice of enforced disappearance, is committing a "crime against humanity", in violation of the domestic and international laws. The organization points out that this crime cannot be invoked by any excuse to continue carrying it out, and this was confirmed by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance”.
ESOHR considers that the Saudi government's practices against detainees, including enforced disappearance, are evidence of the inability to trust the security and judicial systems in Saudi Arabia, which are considered fertile ground for impunity for government officials. The organization also considers that all these practices refute the claims of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to reform the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, and to develop the system in Saudi Arabia in line with human rights and freedoms, thereby confirming that their allegations cannot be taken seriously.