The American "Insider" website revealed that the Saudi authorities cut off all communications with Princess Basma Bint Saud Al Saud, who was detained in Al-Ha'ir prison after she posted tweets on her account on Twitter last month, in which she appealed to her uncle King Salman and her cousin the Crown Prince to release her.
The website quoted an aide close to Princess Basma, 56, as posting tweets, in which she says that she is being arbitrarily detained in the highly-guarded prison of al-Ha'ir, near the capital, without any crime she committed. He was charged with severing all contacts with the outside world.
The aide close to the Saudi princess added that since her tweets last month, she has cut off all contacts and is no longer able to make contact with anyone. According to the same source, in the previous period, about the princess’s tweets, she made a call every week, and received another call from her daughter, Sahoud.
Account piracy
The assistant close to Princess Basma pointed out that after her recent tweets in which the Saudi leadership appeals for her release a year after her imprisonment, her Twitter account was hacked and all her tweets were deleted in the past month, and after two weeks the media office recovered the account and re-posted the imprisoned princess’s tweets starting Last April 27.
Weekly direct communication interruption and indirect fully with Her Royal Highness Princess Basma girl Saud since the first tweet on 17 April 2020 and we have not so far any information about their health status or legal |
The American website stated that his request to clarify the status of the princess addressed to both the prisons administration in the Kingdom and the Saudi embassy in Washington, was not answered.
Reuters quoted a relative of the princess as saying that Basma was going to travel abroad for treatment when she was arrested in February last year, and was informed that she was accused of trying to forge a passport.
The source added that the charges against her were dropped, but she is still imprisoned in Al-Hayer prison with her daughter Soud, who was with her at the time of her arrest, and the princess herself recently informed that she has been detained in Al-Hayer prison in Riyadh for more than a year, and that she is ill and has not received appropriate treatment.
Reason for detention
The Princess's family indicated - in an appeal to the United Nations last March - that the reason for her detention "may be her role as a vocal critic of the violations in the country in which we were born, as well ... in order to inquire about the frozen wealth left by her father."
Basma does not hold any position within the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, but is a figure internationally known for defending human rights in the Kingdom.
The imprisoned Princess’s case recalls what Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has done since 2017 with dozens of members of the ruling family, some of whom are members of the pledge committee that chooses the king and his crown prince, as they arrested them at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, where they were tortured and took billions of their money from them , And the authorities justified this as a campaign to fight corruption.