Mabahith

Role

According to Human Rights Watch, the Mabahith "monitors suspected political opponents and others, targets individuals for arrest, and interrogates detainees. Mabahith agents operate with impunity and have been responsible for a wide range of human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, and torture" including waterboarding, denailing, flagellation and beatings, amongst other forms of severe abuse.

Members of the Mabahith were allegedly responsible for the torture of Western detainees arrested during a car bombing campaign which started in 2000. Two members in particular, Khalid al-Saleh and Ibrahim al-Dali, were named by William Sampson in his court action against the Saudi government, Sampson and others lost their case in the UK High Court when the Saudis used the State Immunity Act 1978 as their defence.

Directors

• Ali bin Hassan Al-Sayrafi (1965 - 1967)
• Fayez bin Mohammed Al-Aufi (1967 - 1969)
• Ahmed bin Saleh Mansour (1969 - 1971)
• Abdulaziz bin Masoud Ismail (1972 - 1986)
• Saleh bin Taha bin Saleh Khasifan (1986 - 2002)
• Mahmoud bin Mohammed Bakhsh (2002 - 2006)
• AbdulAziz bin Mohammed Al-Howairini (2006 - 2022)
• Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz Al-Issa (2022 - Present)

Prisons

Al-Ha'ir Prison

Al-Ha'ir Prison is a Mabahith-affiliated prison. The Mabahith have conducted classified interviews as well as interrogations of high profile Al-Qaeda members being held in the prison.

ʽUlaysha Prison

Mabahith runs the ʽUlaysha Prison in Riyadh, where it holds prisoners under arbitrary detention. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has objected to arbitrary detention at Mabahith's prison. , arbitrarily detained prisoners apparently include five founding members of a would-be political party, the Umma Islamic Party, and Khaled al-Johani, who publicly protested in Riyadh on the 11 March "Day of Rage" during the 2011 Saudi Arabian protests. Political prisoners living in exile have testified that Mabahith agents used illegal interrogation methods and tortured political dissidents who were being held arbitrarily in the prison.

Dhahban Central Prison

Dhahban Central Prison is used for arbitrary detention. According to the Human Rights Watch report, women activists – who have been detained since May 2018 – were taken to Dhahban and tortured in a room called an "officer's guesthouse". Reportedly, the men who tortured these women were from "cyber security" – a reference to officers working under Saud al-Qahtani, who was fired for his involvement in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

References

References

1. (2009). "Human Rights and Saudi Arabia's Counterterrorism Response - Religious Counseling, Indefinite Detention and Flawed Trials".
2. "Saudi Arabia 2018".
3. (6 December 2018). "Saudi Arabia: Allow Access to Detained Women Activists". Human Rights Watch.
4. [https://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/saudi/ Human Rights in Saudi Arabia: A Deafening Silence (Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, December 2001)]
5. (2012-08-28). "Saudi Arabia: Dispensing a Peaceful Demonstration after Assaulting Prisoner's Wife and Four of Her Children due to A video Segment". [[Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
6. (2007-07-02). "Saudi Arabia: Opinion on the arbitrary detention of Mr. Faiz bin Abdelmohsen Al Qaid". [[Alkarama.
7. (2009-04-21). "Saudi Arabia: The Working Group of the United Nations describes the detention of Abdel Rahman Samara as arbitrary". [[Alkarama.