Saudi Arabia: The Story of the Lacking and the Executed

Whereas Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) continues to benefit from the afterglow of his fist bump assembly with US President Joe Biden and the windfall income from the massive bump in oil costs, human rights activists proceed to doggedly pursue his ongoing abuse of human rights within the kingdom.

The Tragic Tales of the Father and the Son

London-based alqst.org this week revealed an in depth account of the arrest and disappearance of the son of a outstanding conservative cleric, who himself was arrested in 2016 and subsequently disappeared.

The group had this to say: 

“ALQST has realized of the arrest on 14 August 2021 of Abdulwahhab al-Dowaish, son of the preacher Sulaiman al-Dowaish who has been forcibly disappeared since 2016. Abdulwahhab, who was arrested beforehand in June 2017, had obtained a telephone name from the Saudi authorities asking him to go to the Naif School for Nationwide  Safety in Riyadh, supposedly to have the digital tag faraway from his ankle. Nonetheless, as quickly as he arrived he was knowledgeable that he needed to spend the rest of his sentence, amounting to eight months, in jail.”

Abdulwahhab al-Dowaish was initially arrested in 2017 after an argument with an official on the Inside Ministry to whom he had gone to hunt the discharge of his father. In the middle of the argument Abdulwahhab informed the official: “We love our father dearly; both launch him or put us in jail with him.” The next day, quite a few civilian vehicles surrounded Sulaiman al-Dowaish’s household residence, the place all his youngsters lived. Abdulwahhab was then arrested and forcibly disappeared for 3 months, after which his household had been capable of go to him in jail and noticed he had clearly been tortured. A supply informed ALQST that Abdulwahhab was tortured and compelled below duress to make confessions, and since he was in such poor bodily situation he was moved to the jail hospital for therapy earlier than being returned as soon as once more to the principle jail.

Abdulwahhab was subsequently placed on trial on prices together with help for Islamic State (IS) and holding extremist concepts, though the Public Prosecution failed to provide any proof for this. He was launched earlier than his trial started in March 2018, and was sentenced in September 2020 by the Specialised Prison Courtroom, Saudi Arabia’s terrorism court docket, to a few and a half years in jail with eighteen months suspension, to be adopted by a journey ban of comparable period.”

ALQST notes it nonetheless doesn’t know the place Abdulwahhab is at the moment being held.

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Abdulwahhab’s father was allegedly introduced earlier than MBS in chains and crushed by the crown prince. The cleric was a staunch supporter of the ruling household however fell spectacularly out of favor in 2016 after he revealed a collection of tweets. Ramzi Kaiss writing for the Washington-based human rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) describes what occurred to Sulaiman al-Dowaish intimately:

“Within the tweets that apparently provoked his abduction, Dowaish wrote in regards to the risks of people offering “their spoiled sons” with “extreme powers and tasks with out accountability and oversight.” It was, maybe, a not-so-subtle reference to King Salman and his son, MBS, who on the time was amassing newfound political energy after being appointed by his father, a yr earlier, because the minister of protection and deputy crown prince. By 2017, MBS was crown prince.

After being detained in Mecca, Dowaish disappeared. In response to an eyewitness, he was quickly flown to Riyadh, the place he was taken, handcuffed and chained, to the workplace of MBS himself. In response to MENA Rights Group’s sources, Mohammed bin Salman pressured Dowaish onto his knees and started to personally assault him—punching him within the chest and throat, and berating him about his tweets. Dowaish, bleeding excessively from his mouth, misplaced consciousness.

Dowaish was then saved in an unofficial detention facility positioned within the basement of a royal palace in Riyadh. In response to ALQST’s sources, the basement of this palace had been used to imprison and torture high-ranking Saudi officers and rival members of the royal household, by MBS’s personal entourage. Maher al-Mutreb and Saud al-Qahtani, two members of the infamous “Tiger Squad” hit group answerable for the homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and different Saudi dissidents, had been in command of working the key jail and personally oversaw the torture of Dowaish.”

The Spoiled Son with a Style for Blood

ALQST, whereas persevering with to demand solutions on the destiny of Sulaiman, has referred to as on the Saudi authorities to launch his son instantly and unconditionally and drop all prices in opposition to him.

However as with different instances, MBS and the supine judicial system that solutions to him pays no heed to the decision, notably as Western governments themselves have chosen to largely ignore his a number of abuses, probably the most extensively publicized of which was to order the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

Though the Biden administration claims that the president raised the Khashoggi case and different human rights violations with the crown prince, human rights activists have argued that each one that Biden achieved along with his assembly with MBS was to additional embolden the crown prince.

Certainly a Saudi doctoral scholar learning at Leeds College had a earlier sentence of three years dramatically elevated.  Her crime was posting feedback essential of the regime on an internet site on the web. Salma al-Shehab had returned to the dominion on a vacation when she was arrested. On 9 August, the appeals court docket sentenced the 34-year-old mom of two younger youngsters to 34 years in jail. As if this was not sufficient, the court docket ordered that, after her launch, this girl would face a 34-year journey ban.

On August 15, numbers revealed that executions within the first six months of 2022 hit 120. A document 81 had been executed in a single day. That is the biggest quantity within the historical past of the dominion. That quantity is larger than the whole variety of executions of the final two years, making a mockery of Saudi guarantees to restrict executions. It raises questions on what precisely did Biden’s assembly with MBS truly obtain.

[Arab Digest first published this article and is a partner of Fair Observer.]

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Honest Observer’s editorial coverage.