Hundreds of Yemenis tortured in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan prison: Rights group

A Geneva-based rights group reveals that hundreds of Yemeni inmates have been subjected to systematic torture and ill-treatment at a prison in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Jizan region.

Citing information obtained from former prisoners, the SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties said on Monday that the Yemeni detainees have been tortured by electrocution and crucifixion, held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods, and denied health care as well as contact with their lawyers and families.

At least one inmate died of torture, the group noted, raising concerns about the health condition of two inmates, Ahmed Saleh al-Fateqi and Ali al-Komani, who were subjected to daily torture after being held in solitary confinement for months.

It also called for an investigation into the reported enforced disappearance of Yemenis in Saudi jails.

Meanwhile, SAM Chairman Tawfiq al-Hamidi said the Yemeni prisoners include more than 500 recruits serving the Saudi-led military coalition waging war on Yemen.

He added that 28 of the detainees had been arrested for asking earlier this year to visit their families during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

A number of Yemeni fishermen were also abducted for unknown reasons by militants loyal to the government of former Riyadh-backed Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and handed over to Saudi Arabia.

HRW: Saudi forces torture, disappear Yemeni civilians in al-Mahrah

Human Rights Watch says Saudi forces and their allies have commited serious abuses against Yemeni civilians since June last year in al-Mahrah.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia — leading a coalition of its allies — has been waging a deadly US-backed military campaign in Yemen with the aim of reinstating Hadi, who had resigned and fled to Riyadh.

The aggressor coalition has further blockaded impoverished Yemen, turning the situation there into what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are said to be running secret prisons inside Yemen, with numerous reports of serious human rights violations at the facilities.

In June, a well-known Saudi activist whistleblower going by the name “Mujtahid” exposed the existence of a Riyadh-run prison in Yemen’s largest province of Hadhramout, where the regime has tortured many to death.

Mujtahid revealed that hundreds if not thousands of Yemenis were being kept at the facility, where conditions were “not even fit for an animal,” calling on international organizations to address the matter.

The Human Rights Watch had also said in March that Saudi forces and their allies had since last June perpetrated serious abuses against civilians in the Yemeni province of a-Mahrah, including arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances, and illegal transfer of people to Saudi Arabia.

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