Saudi security officers have tortured jailed women’s-rights activists as part of a government campaign to squelch criticism of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that began before last month’s killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to people familiar with the situation.
At least eight of the 18 women’s-rights activists detained by Saudi authorities this year have been tortured, including at least four who were subjected to electric shocks and lashings, according to two advisers to the Saudi royal family, activists and others with knowledge of the prisoners’ treatment.
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Asked to comment on the accusation, a Saudi official said: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary system does not condone, promote, or allow the use of torture.”
Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler, has sought to portray himself as a modernizer with plans to relax social strictures and attract foreign investment to remake its oil-dependent economy. In June, with great fanfare, the kingdom finally lifted the world’s only ban on women driving. At the same time, however, the kingdom has moved to silence perceived critics in waves of arrests targeting clerics, intellectuals and activists. In the anticorruption campaign that began last year, dozens of royal family members and prominent businessmen were rounded up and detained at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh; some of them were physically abused, according to people familiar with the matter.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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