Since 2006, Saudi Arabia has ignored all requests to visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to assess the human rights situation in the country. The number of letters sent to Saudi Arabia from 2011 until June 2022 by UN experts, including the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and asking for information on torture, reached 68. The Saudi response to these messages was not convincing and was marred by a lot of misinformation and unrealistic information about facts and events that have been proven to have occurred behind Saudi bars and in Saudi society.
Over the past years, the Saudi government has publicized that it deals positively with the United Nations and its special mechanisms, by responding regularly to messages sent by working groups and special rapporteurs. The monitoring and follow-up of the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights confirm that this promotion is unrealistic. In addition to continuing to ignore requests for visits, the responses and reports provided by the Saudi government contain misinformation.
In 2006, the Special Rapporteur requested a visit to Saudi Arabia without receiving any response. In 2007, the rapporteur reminded the Saudi government of his previous request to visit, yet Saudi Arabia ignored it again.
On August 31, 2016, United Nations experts, including the Special Rapporteur on Torture, sent a letter to the Saudi government about the information on torture and ill-treatment, the denial of medical care, the imposition of the death penalty and inhumane conditions of detention, as well as the use of prolonged solitary confinement and the extracting of confessions under torture against six convicts, including minors. The convicts are Elizan Muhammad Farouk Al-Jazaery, Ali Muhammad Al-Nimr, Mujtaba Nader Abdullah Al-Suwaiket, Munir Al Adam, Raif Badawi, and Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr.
On November 21, 2016, after the death sentence against the minor Mujtaba Al-Suwaiket in June 2016 after an unfair trial and torture, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions and the Special Rapporteur on torture sent a letter to the Saudi government expressing their concern From the information they had about Al-Suwaiket’s being tortured and sentenced to death because he participated in anti-government demonstrations, they called on Saudi Arabia to respect the international agreements it signed and to provide clear and frank answers to their questions about Suwaiket’s torture and unfair trial before he was sentenced to death. On January 17, 2017, Saudi Arabia responded to the last two letters of the special rapporteurs, denying that the six defendants, including the minor Mujtaba Al-Suwaiket, had been subjected to torture, claiming that the death sentence issued against Al-Suwaiket was based on evidence of his involvement in terrorist acts. The Saudi response did not provide counter-evidence, did not respond to the allegations of torture, and did not indicate the opening of any investigation into them.
On January 24, 2017, after receiving the unconvincing and misleading Saudi responses, the Special Rapporteur on torture submitted a new request to the Saudi government to visit the country, but the Saudi government ignored that request.
On July 15, 2019, Saudi Arabia carried out the mass execution of 37 detainees on April 23, 2019, including at least 6 minors: Saeed Al-Skafi, Salman Amin Al-Quraysh, Mujtaba Nader Al-Suwaiket, Abdullah Salman Al-Sarih, Abdulaziz Hussein Sahwi, and Abdul-Karim Muhammad Al-Hawaj. In addition to those accused of participating in demonstrations, most notably Munir Al Adam, who is a person with special needs.
After Saudi Arabia arrested at least 15 writers, and human rights defenders between 4 and 9 April 2019, the United Nations experts, including the Special Rapporteur on torture, sent a letter to the Saudi government expressing their condemnation of Saudi Arabia's mass execution of dissidents after accusations were extracted from them under torture and subjecting them to an unfair trial. The letter also expressed concern that Saudi Arabia has arrested at least 15 intellectuals, writers, and human rights defenders, forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained them without charge, and prevented them from seeking legal assistance and receiving visits from their families. On September 12, 2019, Saudi Arabia responded to the letter, claiming that the mass execution came after it was proven that the 37 detainees were involved in terrorist acts, denying the evidence confirming that they had been tortured. In the same letter, Saudi Arabia claimed that the 15 detainees were arrested on terrorism-related charges, denying that they were forcibly disappeared, arbitrarily detained, and prevented from seeking legal assistance and from receiving visits from their families.
On November 21, 2019, after receiving the unconvincing and misleading response from Saudi Arabia, the Special Rapporteur on torture reminded the Saudi government of his previous request for a visit, which he had sent on January 24, 2017, proposing that the visit take place in the first half of 2020, but Saudi Arabia continued to ignore it.
More recently, in the first half of 2022, Saudi Arabia was reported six times about human rights violations involving torture, implicating the Saudi government. The correspondence was carried out by United Nations experts, including the Special Rapporteur on torture. Among the most prominent of these correspondences is the correspondence related to those sentenced to death at the time, and those who were subsequently executed, Aqil Al-Faraj, Asaad Shuber, and a third person whose name the rapporteurs refused to reveal. In the letter sent to the Saudi government on February 25, 2022, the Special Rapporteurs expressed their concern over the possibility of Saudi Arabia executing the three defendants. The letter called on the Saudi government to halt the death sentences and to hold a fair trial for them because they were subjected to torture and an unfair trial. As pieces of evidence were extracted from them under torture. The letter stated that the Saudi authorities tortured Al-Faraj using several methods, including placing him in solitary confinement for about two and a half months, preventing him from communicating with his family or his external surroundings, beating him, electrocuting him, extinguishing cigarettes in his body, and placing him in a very cold cell, which caused him A deterioration in his eyesight, permanent pain in his back and bones, and a state of psychological distress. Although Al-Faraj confirmed during his trial that confessions were extracted from him under torture, the Saudi judiciary sentenced him to death.
On April 20, 2022, the Saudi government sent a response to the letter of the special rapporteurs, alleging that the defendants confessed the crimes of their own free will, denying that they had been subjected to torture, and considering that the decision to execute them came because of their involvement in terrorism.
On March 28, 2022, seven United Nations Special Rapporteurs, including the Special Rapporteur on torture, expressed their shock and anger at the information they received about the execution of 81 people by Saudi Arabia on March 12, 2022. Among those executed were citizens Aqil Al-Faraj, Muhammad Al-Shakhouri, and Asaad Shuber, Those whose cases were raised with the Saudi government previously, as information indicated that the verdicts against them came after trials that did not meet fair trial guarantees, including reliance on statements extracted under torture. The letter also indicated that among those executed were 41 people belonging to the Shiite minority accused of participating in anti-government protests. Saudi Arabia responded to the letter, but the document has not been published yet.
On January 26, 2022, a letter was sent also to the Saudi government from the Special Rapporteur on executions and extrajudicial killings, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and freedoms in the fight against terrorism, and the Special Rapporteur on torture, calling for an immediate halt to the execution of death sentences against two young Bahrainis, Jaafar Sultan, and Sadiq Thamer, who were arbitrarily detained and accused of terrorism because they participated in anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain, and considered that the data on the case made their executions arbitrary.
The letter indicated that both Thamer and Sultan were held incommunicado for several months, and their families only learned of their arrest through the local media. The rapporteurs explained that the information confirmed that the two detainees had been subjected to torture, including solitary confinement for several months and being forced to sign confessions. They were also unable to communicate with a lawyer until after the trial began.
On March 24, 2022, the Saudi government sent a letter in which it responded to the letter of the Special Rapporteurs about Sultan and Thamer, and as usual, the letter denied what it considered “allegations” of torture, defending the death sentence as the two Bahrainis were involved in terrorist activities. On April 6, 2022, the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia ratified the death sentence against Bahraini citizens, Jaafar Sultan and Sadiq Thamer, allowing the Saudi authorities to kill them at any time.
ESOHR believes that the Saudi government's record of dealing with the UN mechanisms and the working groups is bad, and that it is currently trying to use and deal with these mechanisms to promote a change in the human rights file, but the reality confirms its disregard for legal opinions and its violation of its international obligations.
The organization stresses that the repeated request of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment to visit Saudi Arabia is the result of systematic violations of international law in the matter of arrests and torture and the use of confessions extracted under torture to issue unfair sentences against defendants. Despite this, there has been no response since 2006. The organization also stresses that any visit of the working group or any of the special rapporteurs and special mechanisms must be preceded by ensuring the ability to reach victims, activists, and women human rights defenders, especially with Saudi Arabia's record of prosecuting collaborators with the United Nations and restricting visits that have already taken place.