A report published on Thursday, by the UN on human rights, is accusing Saudi Arabia of using anti-terror laws to suppress free speech and failing to carry out independent inquiries into its Yemen bombing campaign.
The UN believes that prisoners are being imprisoned for ungrounded reasons under anti-terror laws.
The report is set up by Emmerson, from a five-day visit to Riyadh on behalf of the UN. As Saudi officials denied to grant the rapporteur access to prisoners, UN believes that wrongful arrests took place, cases of torture to extract confessions and misuse of court procedures.
Emmerson asked for the release of 10 Saudis which he believes are wrongly arrested because they had expressed criticism of the kingdom. Saudi judicial authorities gave as a response that the kingdom was either reforming or acting proportionately in the face of a genuine terror threat.
Emmerson praised Saudi rehabilitation work and the standard of its prisons as among the best in the world, but his criticism of human rights made him raise attention to violated laws which Emmerson thinks is taking place in Saudi. Emmerson urged the Saudis to set up an independent mechanism to investigate “all crimes allegedly committed by speech or writing in order to determine whether they violate the protected rights of expression, thought, conscience, religion or belief, assembly or association”.
