UN Torture Watchdog Concerned over Saudi Arabia's Ill-Treatment of Activists

The committee that monitors the UN Convention against Torture also called on Saudi Arabia on Friday to stop corporal punishment, including flogging and amputations, in its first review of Saudi Arabia since 2002.

"Has Saudi Arabia taken steps to prohibit... corporal punishments, such as flogging and amputation of limbs, which are in breach of the Convention?" panel member Felice Gaer asked Saudi officials.

The head of the Saudi delegation said work was under way on "a new penal code to combat the abuse of power, to include the definition of torture as provided under the Convention," something the panel had requested at its last review in 2002, according to Reuters.

The Committee against Torture usually looks at countries every five years or so, but had been unable to do so for Saudi Arabia because the government was over 4 years late in submitting its report on its compliance with the Convention.

Gaer said the committee knew of "a significant number" of cases where suspects said they had been tortured into making confessions and that Saudi judges appeared to be "making little or no effort to investigate these allegations."

"We are aware of many people belonging to or who actually created human rights organizations have been deprived of their liberty, and sometimes charged and even sentenced to lengthy jail terms," she said. "This casts a pall over the review."

Journalist Alaa Brinji was sentenced last month to five years in jail for insulting the kingdom's rulers and inciting public opinion, "merely for posting messages on Twitter in support of Saudi Arabian human rights activists," Gaer said.