Detained women speak of sexual abuse & torture

Riyadh, Mar 29: Saudi women activists detained for almost a year offered their defence at an emotionally charged hearing on Wednesday, alleging torture and sexual harassment during interrogation, sources said.

Eleven women responded to charges that rights groups say include contact with international media and human rights groups, in the second hearing of a high-profile trial that foreign reporters and diplomats are barred from attending.

Some of them wept and consoled each other and their family members gathered before a three-judge panel in Riyadh's criminal court as they accused interrogators of subjecting them to electric shocks and flogging and groping them in detention, two people with access to the trial said.

At least one of the detained women tried to commit suicide following her mistreatment, a close relative said. The government, facing intense international scrutiny of its human rights record, denies the women were tortured or harassed.

The women, including prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul, blogger Eman al-Nafjan and university professor Hatoon al-Fassi, were detained last summer in a sweeping crackdown on campaigners just before the historic lifting of a decades-long ban on female motorists.

The women had long campaigned for the right to drive and to abolish the restrictive guardianship system that gives male relatives arbitrary authority over women.

Their trial has intensified criticism of the kingdom over human rights following global outrage over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder by Saudi agents last October.

Loujain's brother and sister, based overseas, have alleged that Saud al-Qahtani, a top advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who was fired over Khashoggi's killing, oversaw the torture.

"The top adviser of the prince was threatening to rape my sister, kill her, cut her body into pieces," Walid al-Hathloul, Loujain's brother, said.

"He's the one who should be in court today, not my sister." Qahtani has not appeared in public since his sacking was announced.

Some of the detained women have appealed for bail, with the judges expected to make a decision on on Thursday, family members said. The trial is set to resume on April 3, they added. There was no immediate comment from the criminal court.

At the time of their arrest, officials accused the women of links to foreign intelligence agencies, while state-backed media branded them traitors and “agents of embassies”.

The charge sheets, however, make no mention of contact with foreign spies, campaigners who have reviewed the documents say. Some of the charges against the women fell under a section of the kingdom's sweeping cybercrime law, which carries prison sentences of up to five years. Loujain asked the court for one month to respond to the charges saying she was not given enough time to prepare, Walid said.