S Arabia urged to stop prosecuting protesters

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S Arabia urged to stop prosecuting protesters

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A rights group Sunday urged Saudi Arabia to stop prosecuting people for peaceful protests.

28 October,2012 08:14 pm

Security forces arrested dozens of men after the Sept. 23 protest near Tarfiya prison in central Saudi Arabia to press for the release of detained relatives.Demonstrators and a rights activist said police had kept the protesters, including women and children, without food or water for nearly a day.In a separate demonstration on the same day, dozens of protesters gathered in front of the government-linked Saudi Human Rights Commission also calling for the release of jailed relatives.Human Rights Watch said the Saudi Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution charged the 19 men on Oct. 17 with instigating chaos and sedition and gathering illegally.The following day, 15 of them were sentenced to between three and 15 days in jail. The court also handed the men suspended sentences of between 50 and 90 lashes and suspended jail terms of between two and five months.Instead of addressing the protesters concerns, the Saudi government has used the judicial system to punish them, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.The sentences handed to these men are part of a wider effort to target and harass activists across the country. Saudi officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.