Saudi regime tortured female activist in ‘palace of terror’: Brother

The brother of detained Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul has detailed in an opinion piece the abuse his sister has endured in prison.

Walid al-Hathloul wrote Thursday that during a recent visit by his parents to see Loujain she told them that she was regularly whipped, beaten, electrocuted and sexually harassed in a basement she called the “palace of terror”.

“Whenever Loujain spoke about the torture sessions to my parents, her hands shook uncontrollably. I fear the pain will stay with her forever,” Walid wrote on the CNN website.

“My own baby sister said she is being whipped, beaten, electrocuted and harassed on a frequent basis.

“She said that sometimes there are masked men who wake her up in the middle of the night to shout unimaginable threats.”

One of the investigators, Walid said, tried to pressure his sister into marrying him, threatening her with rape.

Saudi activists and the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) earlier stated that she and other female detainees had been tortured and sexually harassed in prison.

They also said that a former top adviser of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani, was present during at least one of the interrogation sessions.

According to Human Rights Watch and people familiar with the events, Qahtani had allegedly threatened to rape, kill and throw one of the detainees into the sewage system.

Qahtani was also implicated in the Istanbul consulate killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in early October last year.

Loujain was arrested in May 2018, along with 10 other women rights activists in Saudi Arabia.

She was first arrested in 2014 on charges of violating a Saudi law that banned women from driving after she tried to cross the border in her car from the UAE to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that forbids women from driving.

Loujain graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2013. Her situation has already caught international attention in light of problems plaguing Saudi-Canadian ties.

Saudi Arabia expelled Canada’s ambassador last July after Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland criticized the kingdom’s apprehension of rights activists.

The women are among more than a dozen prominent activists arrested since May amid a broader crackdown targeting clerics and intellectuals.

Nearly a dozen women are still being held, activists say, some of whom have alleged to have been tortured. The allegations come as Riyadh tries to get past the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, whose murder is internationally blamed on bin Salman.

Torture and various forms of ill-treatment have been routinely and widely reported over the past years in Saudi prisons and detention centers.

Khashoggi, a distinguished commentator on Saudi affairs who wrote for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions section, was also tortured, murdered and then dismembered with a bone saw by Saudi operatives at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.