Saturday, October 11, 2014

Amnesty: Saudi officials on ruthless campaign of persecution...

Saudi Arabia is waging a "systematic and ruthless campaign of persecution" against peaceful activists in order to silence criticism of the state in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, Amnesty International said Friday.

The rights group released a new 20-page report, titled "Saudi Arabia's ACPRA: How the kingdom silences its human rights activists," focusing mostly on the cases brought against 11 members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association. Amnesty refers to the group as ACRPA, though it is also widely known by its Arabic acronym HASEM.

"The Saudi Arabian authorities have targeted the founding members of ACPRA one by one, in a relentless effort to dismantle the organization and silence its members, as part of a broader crackdown on independent activism and freedom of expression since 2011," the report said.

Amnesty said the government has also responded with force to protests for greater political rights, particularly those led by members of the country's Shiite minority. The rights group said that in other cases, security forces have used ill-treatment and torture against political detainees.

"The Saudi Arabian authorities have consolidated their iron grip on power through a systematic and ruthless campaign of persecution against peaceful activists in a bid to suppress any criticism of the state in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings," said Said Boumedouha, deputy head of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program. Full story...

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