Saudi Arabia has detained thousands of people as part of its anti-terrorism drive without charging them and sometimes even ignoring court rulings ordering their release, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

New York-based HRW is the second international rights body to criticise the US ally and the world's biggest oil exporter for violating human rights on security grounds. Amnesty International issued a similar report in July.

In a report, Human Rights and Saudi Arabia’s Counterterrorism Response, HRW said the General Directorate for Investigations, the domestic intelligence agency, was holding an unknown number of people in its prisons, among them foreigners, and dissidents demanding democratic reforms.

HRW estimated that more than 9,000 had been held since al Qaeda launched a campaign in 2003, of whom probably between 2,000 and 4,000 were still detained, said Christoph Wilcke, the author of the report.

Few were ever charged or had access to lawyers, even if Saudi laws limit detention without trial to six months, with the intelligence agency ignoring court rulings ordering a release in some cases, HRW said, citing families of detainees or activists.

"Saudi Arabia's response to terrorism for years has been to lock up thousands of suspects and throw away the key," the organisation said, listing several cases of people held under what it said were questionable circumstances.

A spokesman for the interior ministry declined to comment, saying the government had to study the report first. The ministry has not commented on the Amnesty report.

(Source: Reuters)
(Photo: Human Rights Watch)