‘Saudi Arabia should release women activists’

By Bayram Altug</p> <p>GENEVA (AA) – Saudi Arabia should release all detained women’s rights activists immediately and unconditionally, international human rights experts said Monday.</p> <p>They said the Kingdom should also investigate torture allegations.</p> <p>“We note a failure to launch independent investigations into allegations of torture in Saudi Arabia,” Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN special rapporteur on human rights, said at the panel “Saudi Arabia: Time for Accountability” during the 40th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.</p> <p>Michel Forst, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said, “The work of defenders doesn’t go against national security.”</p> <p>Saudi Arabia use electrocution, flogging and sexual assault as torture methods on detained human rights defenders, said Zaynab Al-Khawaja of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights. </p> <p>&quot;All detained women's human rights defenders should be released immediately without any condition. Perpetrators who tortured them have to face justice.”</p> <p>Al-Khawaja said she was detained several times while campaigning for women’s rights in Bahrain and was released because of international pressure.</p> <p>“We don’t want human rights defenders to just be released but to be able to continue to do the work they are doing,” she added.</p> <p>Omaima Al Najjar, an exiled Saudi activist living in London, said Saudi Arabia is distracting the international community from human rights abuses with “cosmetic reforms”.</p> <p>“Although women can now drive, the women who campaigned for this change are still in prison,” she said.</p> <p>Al-Khawaja told Anadolu Agency that anyone who wants to improve human rights in the country has been declared an enemy.</p> <p>“They take naked photographs of women detainees. Because they know our culture well and how to hurt women. That’s why women should be protected,” she said.</p> <p>Al-Khawaja also said the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is giving Saudi Arabia and Bahrain a green light for the sake of economic relations.