http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=78718&d=3&m=9&y=2006&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Sunday, 3, September, 2006 (10, Sha`ban, 1427)
Saudis Recall Horror in Syrian Prison
Arab News
RAFHA, 3 September 2006 - After Fawaz Al-Onaizi got into an
argument with a local while on vacation in Syria, the 28-year-old Saudi got a
20-day taste of the country's prison system, complete with lashings, arbitrary
charges, and signing sheets of paper without being allowed to read what had
been written on them.
"I still have marks from the hard lashing on my back,"
Al-Onaizi told Al-Watan Arabic daily. "They wanted me to confess that I was
cursing the Syrian government."
The young Saudi said that about half an hour after arriving
in Damascus for vacation, he got into an argument with a local man in a
restaurant.
The Saudi said the Syrian man cursed Saudi Arabia and this
led to an argument. The argument ended with the Saudi man and his friends, all
in their 20s, leaving the restaurant.
Half an hour later, as the men were getting settled into the
apartment they had rented for the summer break, police charged in and arrested
Al-Onaizi and his friends Ali, Faisal and Ayed. As the four Saudi men were
being taken away, Al-Onaizi said that he saw the man with whom he had argued
standing next to one of the police cars.
After that, he said that the men spent 10 days in the local
police station being lashed and ordered to confess to sedition.
"When I didn't confess to these false accusations, I ended up
in the central penitentiary in Damascus," he said. "There, the charges were
changed from sedition to solicitation of prostitution. When I was arrested, I
had barely been in Syria for an hour."
Al-Onaizi said that afterward it seemed the police didn't
know what to do with them. There was no investigation, though the men said they
were forced to sign papers, but weren't allowed to read what had been written
on them.
The men allegedly stayed in prison for 20 days. Al-Onaizi
described the conditions as "terrible" and that they were called "bad names."
He said they were served stale, moldy bread and were forced to drink from the
filthy bathrooms.
Al-Onaizi said that he saw about 60 or so other Saudis in the
prison.
Eventually, Al-Onaizi said they managed to bribe their way
out of prison. When they returned to their apartment, they discovered that
everything had been cleared from the room, including their clothes, laptops and
mobile phones, never to seen been again by the four men.
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