Saudi Arabia: Remains a fertile ground for torture with impunity

Index Number: MDE 23/004/2002
Date Published: 30 April 2002
Categories: Middle East And North Africa, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia became a state party to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment over four years ago, but the country remains a fertile ground for torture. Torture is facilitated and perpetuated by a combination of factors, which include, the lack of unequivocal legal prohibition of torture as a crime, serious defects of the criminal justice system, judicial and extra-judicial corporal punishments amounting to torture, discrimination in law and practice particularly against women and foreign workers, and the absence of any credible redress mechanisms.