In an international seminar in Geneva .. The laws of Saudi Arabia muzzle the mouths of the opposition

Saudi Arabia is using anti-terrorism laws to silence activists, including women, in violation of international law guaranteeing freedom of expression, UN human rights experts said.

The remarks were made at a panel discussion entitled "Saudi Arabia: Accounting Time", organized Monday on the sidelines of the 40th session of the Human Rights Council at the UN headquarters in Geneva.

Loose and vague laws
The official Saudi Press Agency said last Friday that the Public Prosecutor's Office had completed investigations into detainees who were arrested by the authorities last year on security charges in preparation for their trial. Rights groups said the detainees were activists defending women's rights.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights during the fight against terrorism Vonwalani Ulin said that Saudi law against terrorism and other legislation was "unacceptably loose and vague."

The law included "those who engage in the promotion or incitement of sit-ins, protests or mass statements, and any person who harms a unit or
Stability of the kingdom by any means. "

These are "blatantly vague terms" and are "used to attack and restrict the rights of prominent human rights defenders, religious figures, writers, journalists, academics and civic activists, all of whom are targeted by this law."

Targeting women
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Michel Forrest said he had been in touch with the Saudi government over the past year since its "repressive campaign".

"The most disturbing thing for me is the targeting of women's rights defenders," he said, adding that "women are not only women who participated in the right to drive women, but all women's groups as well." All detention cases included incommunicado detention in undeclared locations "He said.

The Saudi ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Abdul Aziz al-Wasel told the Human Rights Council on Friday that the Kingdom "take into account in all its procedures, regulations and applications all national and international standards related to human rights," according to the Saudi Press Agency.

Al-Wasel added that "the efforts of the Kingdom in the fight against terrorism are not based solely on security measures, but are an integrated system of systems and procedures that take into account the legal aspects and other aspects necessary to deal with defendants in terrorism cases."

Saudi and non-Saudi activists called on the Kingdom to release human rights defenders who said they had been unlawfully detained by the authorities, including lawyer Walid Abu al-Khair and poet Ashraf Fayyad, and women including Jain al-Hathul and Isra al-Ghamgam.

Torture and licking
"Some of them are well-known campaign leaders such as women's right to drive and abolish men's guardianship," said Zainab al-Khawaja, a senior official at the Gulf Center for Human Rights. "These attacks are aimed at muzzling and dislocating movements in the country."

"The center highlighted some of the methods of torture used in Saudi Arabia, such as electrocution, sometimes whipping, for example, with a whip on the thighs and sexual assault," she said of the Center's report on torture in Saudi Arabia.

Zainab accused the Saudi authorities of "stripping and harassing some women human rights defenders and portraying them naked, some of them handcuffed or blindfolded."

Saudi blogger Omaima al-Najjar, who has been in exile since fleeing the kingdom, has expressed concern about at least 18 women she says have been charged.

"It is important to remember that although many women, for example, can now drive, those who have campaigned for the right to leadership are still in prison, and while women can finally vote or go to the cinema, many activists Those who called for those reforms are still in prison. "

"I fear that, in the absence of international pressure, these women will end up spending the rest of their lives in prison if they are not executed," she said.

Murder of Khashoggi
Saudi human rights activist Yahya Asiri said everyone knew well that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

He considered that a decision could not be taken in the Kingdom without the knowledge of the Crown Prince and said that the perpetrators of Khashoggi's murder were still at large and that the Kingdom had not cooperated with the United Nations Rapporteur, Agnes Kalamar.

"The circumstances of the crime can not be revealed without this investigation, otherwise the Saudi regime will feel free to commit such crimes," he said in an interview with Anatolia, an independent international investigation into Khashoggi's murder.

He thanked Turkey for its efforts to uncover the circumstances of the crime, but felt that its disclosure required an international investigation.