CRPD/C/20/D/38/2016
1.1
The author of the communication is Munir al Adam, a 23-year-old male national of
Saudi Arabia. When he was a child he acquired a slight hearing impairment in his right ear
as a result of an injury. He claims that, when he was in detention, Saudi security forces
tortured him,1 that the State party’s authorities denied him treatment for the resulting injury
and that, as a result, he completely lost hearing in his affected ear. He claims the State party
violated his rights under articles 4, 13 (1), 15 (1), 16 (1) and (4), and 25 (b) of the
Convention.2 The author remains in detention at the General Directorate of Investigation in
Al Dammam. The Optional Protocol entered into force for Saudi Arabia on 24 June 2008.
The author is represented by counsel.
A.
Summary of the information and arguments submitted by the parties
The facts as submitted by the author
2.1
When he was a child, the author suffered an injury. As a consequence, he acquired a
partial hearing impairment in his right ear. The impairment remained stable. On 8 April 2012,
Saudi security forces arrested him at a checkpoint between Safwa and Awamia and
transported him to the Al-Qatif police station, where he was repeatedly subjected to falaqa, a
method of torture whereby the detainee is beaten with a stick on the soles of his feet.
Thereafter, he started crawling for days because he could not walk. Although he cannot
remember the exact dates of all the acts of torture he suffered, he particularly remembers that,
on 20 May, he was tortured in Al-Qatif police station, in the presence of the detective
Mohammed Fahed al Shneeber.
2.2
After two weeks of detention at the Al-Qatif police station, the author was transferred
to the General Directorate of Investigation, in Al Dammam, where he was put in solitary
confinement and tortured again. A torturer threw him on the floor and, as he was lying face
down, the torturer kicked him while wearing shoes forcefully on his back and kicked him in
the face and other parts of his body. In addition, a torturer stepped with his shoes on the
author’s fingers and toes and crushed them, resulting in the removal of a fingernail and a
toenail. As a result of those acts, his hearing impairment began to worsen. From that day on,
the author requested access to medical services.
2.3
Some four and a half months later, the Saudi authorities transported the author to a
military hospital in Dahran for a routine health check. The doctor said that the author suffered
from hearing loss in his right ear of 70/110, and that urgent surgery was necessary in order
to prevent permanent and complete hearing loss. The prison administration left the author
untreated for six months, during which time his hearing progressively worsened. Six months
later, the author was taken to another appointment with a doctor. The doctor stated that his
condition had worsened to the point that he could no longer hear in his right ear. The doctor
also stated that, at that point, surgery could not fix the author’s hearing.
2.4
The State party’s authorities were made aware of the author’s deteriorating hearing in
the medical report drawn up by the doctor at the General Directorate of Investigation in Al
Dammam. However, they took no action in that regard. Additionally, since the beginning of
his detention in April 2012, the author did not have access to a legal counsel, thereby
depriving him of the support of a lawyer, including in gaining access to the necessary medical
services.
2.5
On or about 5 September 2016, the author was prosecuted at the Specialized Criminal
Court in Riyadh.3 He was then allowed to appoint a lawyer, although he has not been able to
1
2
3
2
The author does not provide information about the reasons for his detention.
The author does not provide information about the alleged violations of some of those articles.
See Lori Plotkin Boghardt, “From ISIS to activists: new security trials in Saudi Arabia”, Research Notes,
No. 33 (Washington, D.C., Washington Institute for Near East Policy, May 2016), pp. 1–3: “Saudi
Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court was set up at the General Court in Riyadh to try hundreds of
detainees linked to the al-Qaeda attacks in the kingdom during the mid-2000s. … Since then,
information about the trials held in this national security court continues to be scarce. According to the
Saudi embassy in Washington, by January 2016 the court had tried 2,225 cases, involving 6,122
defendants, since its inception. … details about the defendants, charges, and trials for most of this