Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's National Human Rights Society, a private organisation, is striving hard to unblock restricted access to websites belonging to Arab and international human rights organisations.
Dr Saleh Al Hothalan, chairman of the monitoring and follow-up committee at the society and professor of politics at King Saud University in Riyadh, said that the society had noticed that websites of Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information inside Saudi Arabia had been blocked.
Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Dr Al Hothalan said that blocking these sites is tantamount to depriving Saudi Arabia of its rights as a member of the UN Human Rights Council.
"These sites maintain international standards with regards to reports posted on their sites," he said.
According to Dr Al Hothalan, society members met with officials of Human Rights Watch during their last visit to Saudi Arabia.
Human Rights Watch officials also met with representatives of several governmental and private agencies and their discussions focused on the report about human rights situations in the Kingdom.
The National Human Rights Society will speak with the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission, which is the specialised authority in this regard, about blocking accessibility to the websites, he said.
Violation
According to Dr Al Hothalan, blocking those websites violates clause 19 of the International Human Rights Declaration, which deals with freedom of expression and clause 23 of the Arab Human Rights Charter.
Citing that Saudi Arabia is currently holding the chair of the Permanent Committee for following up human rights in the Arab League, he noted blocking these sites would deal a blow to the kingdom's image with regards to its human rights file.
The National Human Rights Society, in coordination with the Saudi embassy in Amman, will probe the condition of Saudi citizens held up in Jordanian prisons.
The Jordanian Ministry of Interior asserted that there will not be any discrimination in its dealings with either Jordanian or Saudi prisoners.
"The society will make all efforts to find out the real position of the report carried by some local newspapers regarding the presence of Saudis inside the prisons of Jordan, Saudi Arabian dailies reported.
They quoted Dr Mufleh Al Qahtani, deputy chairman of the society as saying, "The society is trying to understand such matters, problems facing them, the period of their jail term in the country and the like."
Recent press reports said that some 25 Saudi detainees at the prison of Sawaqa, south Amman, staged a protest in jail refusing to take meals and meet their relatives, showing solidarity with 25 other Saudi prisoners who had been shifted to another jail.
