GENEVA – Geneva Council for Human Rights and Justice GCHRJ called for an international commission of inquiry to investigate the fate of detainees and disappeared in prisons in Saudi Arabia, the latest journalist Jamal Khashokgi, who disappeared in Turkey under mysterious circumstances five days ago.
The Council stated in a press release that it feared the fate of hundreds of Saudi detainees and those who had been forcibly disappeared after being abducted in flagrant violation of human rights and the principles of international law and international humanitarian law.
The Human Rights Council stressed that the Saudi authorities should disclose immediately the evidence supporting Khashoggi’s claim that he left the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday, otherwise their claim is groundless and only increases the suspicion that he was kidnapped and subjected to enforced disappearance.
He said Khashoggi had left his country a year ago for fear of being arrested in his country where lots of human rights activists, journalists, dissidents and preachers are subjected to arbitrary arrests due to expressing their opinions.
He warned that the fears that Khashoggi, 59, had been forcibly transferred to Saudi Arabia and forced to hide as a punishment for publishing articles and blogs criticizing human rights violations in his country make him a top target for the ruling regime in the kingdom.
He pointed out that Khashoggi’s abduction and forced disappearance on the basis of his opposition to his country’s authorities represents the latest episodes of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, which arrest hundreds of journalists, activists and preachers due to their opinions. Saudi authorities ranks 169 on the list of 180 countries that violate human rights, developed by Reporters Without Borders.
GCHRJ urged the High Commissioner for Human Rights and all relevant United Nations organizations to intervene immediately to pressure Saudi Arabia to reveal the fate of Khashoggi and all those who were forcibly disappeared and detained in the Kingdom under systematic abuses, including torture in public detention and detention centers with a complete absence of any legal control or health care and complete isolation from the outside world.
It also called on the International Human Rights Council to consider the issue of the disappeared and arbitrary detainees in Saudi Arabia as a humanitarian crisis in its own right and to pressure the UN Security Council to carry out its responsibilities and to take all measures to stop all crimes and violations committed by the Saudi regime.
It stressed that the Saudi authorities should be obliged to open all prisons and public and secret detention centers before international bodies and commissions of inquiry and to ensure the safety of all prisoners of conscience and those who are forcibly disappeared as international humanitarian and moral responsibility.