The Saudi authorities are continuing to hold secret trials, ensuring that judicial proceedings in Saudi Arabia fall far short of international fair trial standards. The Saudi public are denied access to attend trials, in the knowledge that requesting access puts them at risk of imprisonment and torture. The authorities also deny access to international observers, including embassy officials, despite Saudi media claiming that they are able to attend.
This was confirmed in a response to a written question tabled by Conservative MP Crispin Blunt on 19 March 2020, relating to the trial of Saudi women’s rights activists in particular. On 27 March, a UK government official replied:
“The UK attends trials of international importance in all countries where permitted. The UK, along with other embassies in Saudi Arabia, has requested and been denied access to each and every trial we have been aware of since October 2018, with the exception of the trials for those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.”
This response, that foreign embassies have repeatedly been denied access to attend trials in Saudi Arabia, supports information received by ALQST. Foreign media and the public have also been denied access. Since October 2018, numerous trial sessions, including those of women’s rights activists, human rights defenders and clerics, have therefore been held in secret trial proceedings, without any independent oversight at all. This contravenes Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states that “everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal”.
The presence of international observers alone does not guarantee a fair trial. Prior to October 2018, when embassy officials were generally permitted access, the Saudi authorities continued to hold grossly unfair trials, and hand down lengthy prison sentences against peaceful dissidents, including in Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court (SCC). Yet the right to a fair trial involves the right to a public and open hearing.
ALQST Director Yahya Assiri commented: “This lack of access to international observers adds a further layer of secrecy to judicial proceedings in Saudi Arabia that are already marred by numerous violations of international fair trial guarantees, including the denial of access to lawyers, undue delays as well as the regular admission of confessions coerced under torture.
Now that international governments rightly admit this on record, they must apply further pressure on the Saudi authorities to gain access to the trials and call for an end to unfair trial proceedings and for the release of those detained arbitrarily”.
The one trial that some foreign diplomats have been permitted access to, the trial over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has also been highly secretive and closed to most international observers. ALQST rejects the verdict handed down in the case on 23 December 2019, which sentenced five people to death. The court is neither fair nor independent and has not tried the main suspects, and ALQST reiterates calls for an international trial to be carried out.
The right to a public and open trial forms a component to a fair trial, and is enshrined by several international human rights instruments. ALQST urges international observers to continue to request access to trials, and to put pressure on the Saudi authorities on this issue. ALQST calls on the Saudi authorities to effectively afford individuals deprived of their liberty all fundamental legal safeguards and fair trial rights. Furthermore, ALQST calls for pressure on the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release prisoners of conscience, detained for exercising their fundamental freedoms.
