Ha’ir prison, in the desert south of Riyadh, is not an attractive place. It is surrounded by concrete walls and watchtowers, as befits a facility run by Saudi Arabia’s internal security service. It holds terrorists, dissidents and others deemed a danger to the state, whose green and white crossed swords and palm tree emblem is stamped everywhere around the sprawling compound.
Armed guards check vehicles and ID cards in a chicane of barriers by the main gate. Military police jeeps block access from the nearby highway. Two weeks ago,Islamic State threatened to destroy the prison after the execution of 47 men, mostly convicted al-Qaida members. Seven had been inmates at Ha’ir before they were taken away to be beheaded or shot. Last summer, a young Isis supporter blew himself up outside.
Visiting journalists, however, are welcome, greeted by coffee, cakes and PowerPoint presentations about conditions for the 1,700 prisoners and the programmes to rehabilitate them. It is part of a Saudi government effort to demonstrate its determination to tackle terrorism at a time when Isis, known in Arabic as Daesh, has become a grave threat to the Middle East and far beyond, thousands of miles from its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. Ha’ir seems well run. The detention blocks are clean and light, the heavy cell doors painted an incongruous lilac. Pot plants line the corridor. Interrogation rooms are equipped with CCTV, a desk and chairs, and a thick steel ring welded to the floor for securing manacled prisoners. Special rooms, equipped with double beds, are available for conjugal visits. There is even a children’s playground.
It is natural to suspect that Ha’ir, one of five prisons run by the Mabahith security service, is designed to impress and mislead. Human rights groups say conditions are worse in general criminal prisons. Allegations of torture are widespread. “Many prisoners do complain about their treatment,” confided a visiting Saudi from another institution. Inmates, in any event, seemed happy to speak.
“My views have changed,” said Saud al-Harbi, a 30-year-old with a wispy beard who is coming to the end of a 12-year sentence for attempting to leave the country to fight in Iraq, and for “contact” with a wanted man. “I saw the pictures of Abu Ghraib [showing the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers] and that was why I wanted to go,” he said. “I was young then.”
Moaz, who has been held without trial for 11 months, was arrested after returning voluntarily from Syria, where he had gone to fight Bashar al-Assad with the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham. “It turned out to be Muslims killing Muslims,” he said. “That wasn’t what I wanted.”
No comments:
Post a Comment