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Saudi Arabia
Human Rights
Saudi Arabia has been cited by several international human rights
monitoring groups for its alleged failure to respect a number
of basic rights. London-based Amnesty International reported receiving
credible testimony from political prisoners who alleged they were
arbitrarily arrested, held in prolonged detention without trial,
and routinely tortured during interrogations. Torture methods
in the Mubahathat (office of secret police) prisons included months
in solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, beatings to the soles
of the feet, suspension by the wrists from ceilings or high windows,
and the application of electric shocks to all parts of the body.
Amnesty International cited reports that sixty-six persons had
been detained without charge or trial for radical Shia activity,
although forty-one of these, as well as other political opponents
of the government, were released in 1990 on the occasion of a
royal pardon for more than 7,000 common criminals.
The human rights organization Middle East Watch, the Minnesota
Lawyers International Human Rights Committee, and the International
Committee for Human Rights in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula
issued reports in 1991 and 1992 that detailed extensive use of
torture in Saudi prisons as a means to extract confessions from
detainees. Prisoners reportedly signed confessions to crimes they
had not committed in order to escape physical and psychological
torture. As of October 1992, human rights organizations had identified
forty-three political prisoners who had been detained for more
than one year without formal charges. Several prisoners are alleged
to have died while in police custody.
The Department of State reported in early 1991 that there was
no automatic procedure for informing a detainee's family or employer
of his arrest. Embassies usually heard of the arrest of their
nationals informally within a few days; official notification
took several months. A policy requiring Ministry of Foreign Affairs
approval of consular access to prisoners had caused delays in
consular visits.
In spite of calls after the Persian Gulf War for modernization
of laws and relief from the influence of strict Islamism in the
imposition of punishment, the royal family showed little disposition
to liberalize the criminal justice system. As of early 1992, the
conservative religious establishment seemed to have solidified
its ability to block reforms of the codes of law and judicial
procedures that were the sources of increasing domestic and international
criticism.
* * *
Among various works analyzing Saudi Arabia's defense posture,
The Gulf and the West: Strategic Relations and Military Realities
by Anthony H. Cordesman covers a range of topics including the
development of the armed forces, the modernization of the air
force, the various United States arms packages, and the naval
confrontation in the Persian Gulf. Additional details on Saudi
defense allocations and the arms buildup through the early 1980s
are presented in Nadav Safran's Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless
Quest for Security. The Middle East, published by the Congressional
Quarterly in 1991, includes a concise discussion of military sales
from the United States political perspective and a summary of
events in the Persian Gulf crisis.
Limited treatment of the role played by Saudi Arabia in the gulf
war can be found in works on Operation Desert Storm by Norman
Friedman, Desert Victory, and James Blackwell, Thunder
in the Desert, and in an article by David A. Fulghum in Aviation
Week and Space Technology.
The aggression of Iraq against Kuwait and the decline of the
Soviet threat in the Middle East have reduced the relevance of
most earlier analyses of the strategic situation in the region.
Several studies are still pertinent to Saudi Arabia, however.
In Arms and Oil: U.S. Military Strategy and the Persian Gulf,
Thomas L. McNaugher considers how Saudi Arabia deals with both
external and domestic security threats as part of a broader review
of United States military interests in the region. Saudi Arabia
and the United States, a report prepared in 1981 by the Congressional
Research Service of the Library of Congress, is still a useful
appraisal of Saudi external and domestic security concerns and
the strategic interests shared by the two countries. In Saudi
Arabia: The West and the Security of the Gulf, Mazher A.
Hameed examines the geopolitical environment in the gulf and the
range of threats to the United States and the West.
A readable account of earlier Saudi military history can be found
in The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud by Robert
Lacey. Several aspects concerning the armed forces, military production,
and the administration of justice are treated in Saudi Arabia
Unveiled by Douglas F. Graham. The operation of the judicial
system and the Saudi record on human rights are briefly examined
in the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
of the Department of State and annual reports by Amnesty International.
Much of the data in the foregoing chapter concerning the size,
organization, and equipment of the Saudi armed forces is based
on The Military Balance, published annually by the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, and on Jane's Fighting Ships.
(For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1992
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