Saudi authorities brutally attack girls in Asir orphanage
4 Min Read
KSA is the site of a brutal attack by Saudi authorities on young girls protesting forf their rights at an orphanage in the Asir province, which sparked outrage on social media.
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Part of the leaked video from the orphanage (Tasnim News)
Saudi security authorities aggressively committed violence toward young girls in an orphanage in the Asir province, which came after the girls had demanded to get their rights in the orphanage.
According to Saudi activists, the security authorities entered the orphanage with permission from the facility's administration, and a leaked video shows the authorities chasing the girls inside and beating them.
Violence against women in #SaudiArabia is a horrific.. This is an attack by dozens of male security forces who used tasers and sticks and abused orphaned girls inside the orphanage just for their hunger strike to improve their poor living conditions.#ايتام_خميس_مشيط pic.twitter.com/NHevnNR9Ki
— Mahmoud Refaat (@DrMahmoudRefaat) August 30, 2022
Saudi news outlets have reported that Asir's Prince, Turki bin Talal bin Abdel-Aziz, has ordered the formation of a committee to convene on the incident, which the Asir Emirate has not released any information about, with the hashtag "Khamees Mushayt Orphans" going viral on social media platforms.
#ايتام_خميس_مشيط
— Ahmed Alawami ابن زينب (@Al3wwami) August 30, 2022
How can those orphans trust the Saudi government again pic.twitter.com/vSAPWecQuE
It is important to note that Saudi authorities practice oppression on their citizens, specifically targeting social activists and human rights advocates in the Kingdom who often end up charged with years in prison or execution.
The #Saudi government madness is unlimited!! Saudis agents raided an orphanage and beat up, dragged, and cuffed some of those innocent girls!! There is no justification for this absurdity!@hrw @amnestygulf @AmnestyAR @amnesty#أيتام_خميس_مشيط pic.twitter.com/hDq9jFnxjt
— Sally  (@yll9as) August 30, 2022
Sentence after sentence, woman after woman
A mere two weeks ago, Salma Al-Shehab, a dental hygiene student at Leeds University and a mother of two, who had returned home for a vacation was sentenced to 34 years in prison for following and retweeting dissidents and activists on her personal Twitter account - for the "crime" of using an internet website to "cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security." On Twitter, she regularly shared pictures of her young children and tweets about Covid burnout.
Court records reviewed by a human rights organization show that another Saudi Arabian woman, Nourah bint Saeed Al-Qahtani, has been sentenced to decades in jail (45 years) for using social media to "violate the public order" by the country's terrorism court.
Abdullah Alaoudh, the director for the Gulf region at Dawn, said Saudi authorities appear to have imprisoned Al-Qahtani for “simply tweeting her opinions,” adding that “it is impossible not to connect the dots between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s meeting with [US] President Biden last month in Jeddah and the uptick in the repressive attacks against anyone who dares criticize the crown prince or the Saudi government for well-documented abuses.”
Saudi prisons, regardless of whether for females or males, are notorious for techniques of torture and abuse that go beyond human rights violations and that suspiciously resemble brutal methods used at US Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. Methods of abuse range from electric shocks, to psychological torture and sexual abuse.
MBS concealing the truth with top-dollar parties
Since Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) became the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia in 2017, the country has jailed hundreds of activists, bloggers, academics, and others for political activism, demonstrating almost zero tolerance for dissent despite international condemnation of the crackdown. Muslim academics have been executed and women's rights activists have been imprisoned and tortured, while the Kingdom's authorities continue to deny freedom of expression, association, and belief.
The case poses evidence of how MBS has targeted Twitter users in his repression campaign, while also controlling a significant indirect stake in the US social media company through Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Most recently, the Kingdom has been using the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and its corresponding entertainment performances by renowned artists like Justin Bieber and A$AP Rocky and actresses like Elite's Maria Pedraza to polish its image in the international arena, diverting its controversial reputation to a more moderate one as planned by MBS himself.
Non-Saudi women residing in the Kingdom, such as domestic workers under the Kafala sponsorship, are among those dramatically affected by the abuse of women's rights, as not only are their passports taken away, but their freedom of communication and movement is limited and sexual harassment and abuse are unfortunately a daily occurrence in the household.
