Saudi Activist: Trials of Prisoners of Conscience Are like Fascist Inquisition
The Saudi activist and son of a prominent jailed Saudi cleric Awad Al-Qarni, Nasser Al-Qarni, said that the trials of the Saudi prisoners of conscience are like fascist inquisition.
What happens in the court, can least be described as a play or a fascist inquisition, Nasser Al-Qarni said in a footage posted on his official Twitter account.
Nasser Al-Qarni, who managed to leave the kingdom about a month ago, detailed the horrific treatment the prisoners and their families are subjected to during the court trials starting from the prison-court journey until the court session.
Usually, a day or sometime hours before the court session, the detainee is informed of the time of his hearing, he said in the video.
“In each court session, detainee of Dhahban prison, for example, including my father, are transported from prion to airport then to Al-Hair prison, and later to the court. The way the prisoners are transported is harsh, violent, and inconsiderate to the elderly or sick.”
He pointed out that the prisoners are transported via a bad and dirty bus while being handcuffed and leg-cuffed and sometimes blindfolded.
According to him, the prisoners’ families are also subjected to similar violations and ill-treatment, where they are forced to park in the surrounding neighborhoods and to walk to the court.
He further said that the families have to pass through three electronic and manual checkpoints in order to ensure that they are not holding any recording devices or hidden cameras to prevent recording of the abuses inside the courtrooms.
Nasser Al-Qarni pointed out that most of the accused or detainees are young people and charged of holding different opinions or saying things that rulers do not like.
After that, they call the names of the accused and their relatives to enter the courtrooms. What happens in the courtrooms can least be described as a play, a fascist inquisition, pre-determined scripts, he added.
“The Public Persecution requests and decides, and the judge nod their heads and implement… Then, no answers or responses are allowed to be received from the detainees and if detainees are allowed to speak, their words are not taken seriously.”
The son of a prominent jailed Saudi cleric has fled the kingdom and in September 2022 and applied for asylum in the UK, affirming that his life was threatened by Saudi authorities for calling for his father’s release.
Nasser Al-Qarni, who was banned from travel, recently succeeded to secretly flee the country, first traveling to Jordan and then onward to London, where he arrived in mid-September.
