CITATION — REFERENCE ENTRY
Muzzling critical voices: Politicized trials before Saudi Arabia's Specialized Criminal Court — Amnesty International
- Key
- amnesty-2020-muzzling-critical-voices
- Authors
- Amnesty International
- Issued
- 2020-2-6
- Type
- report
- Publisher
- Amnesty International
Raw CSL JSON
{
"URL": "https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde23/1633/2020/en/",
"note": "Full 53-page report; copy consulted via amnesty.de PDF mirror.",
"type": "report",
"title": "Muzzling critical voices: Politicized trials before Saudi Arabia's Specialized Criminal Court",
"author": [
{
"literal": "Amnesty International"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2020,
2,
6
]
]
},
"number": "MDE 23/1633/2020",
"accessed": {
"date-parts": [
[
2026,
9,
25
]
]
},
"publisher": "Amnesty International"
}
Claims
-
In the cases Amnesty documented, SCC trials were before a single judge with wide discretion; appeals go to the SCC Appeal Court and then automatically to the Supreme Court, with death sentences referred to the King; appeals are heard behind closed doors without appellants or lawyers and without written reasons. The official Human Rights Commission told Amnesty that the SCC follows the same procedures as other criminal courts and that all its hearings have been public.
"SCC trials were conducted before a single judge, who exercised wide discretion in characterizing offences and determining punishments, including the death penalty. ... Appeals against SCC verdicts and sentences are first reviewed by the SCC Appeal Court and, if upheld, then go automatically to the Supreme Court. If confirmed by the Supreme Court, the verdict and sentence are final. Death sentences, however, are referred to the King for ratification prior to execution. ... They are considered behind closed doors, in the absence of the appellants and their lawyers. ... According to the Human Rights Commission, “All hearings of the SCC have been public, with the presence of the accused, their counsels, their interested family members, HRC representatives, and a number of media outlets.”"
-
On October 28, 2008 the authorities announced that the Supreme Judicial Council had converted a special state-security section of the General Court in Riyadh into the SCC; the Minister of Justice issued an unpublished decree establishing the SCC on January 29, 2009, with no provision for appeals; an April 2011 decree created the SCC Appeal Court.
"In their first public reference to the SCC on 28 October 2008, the authorities announced that the Supreme Judicial Council had decided to convert a special section of the General Court in Riyadh responsible for trying state security-related cases into a special anti-terrorism court, to be known as the SCC ... The Minister of Justice issued a decree establishing the SCC on 29 January 2009, but has never made it public. The decree made no provision for appeals against SCC verdicts. In April 2011, the Minister of Justice issued a decree establishing the SCC Appeal Court."
Available in