The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has made over 30 unannounced visits to prisons in the Kingdom to inspect inmate conditions, according to Al-Watan Arabic daily last Thursday. HRC vice chairman Zaid Aal Mohsen told Al-Watan that over 30 prisons and detention centers were inspected without waiting for permission from the relevant authorities and that reports on the HRC's findings had been submitted to King Abdullah. According to Aal Mohsen, the inspections sought to improve the performance of the facilities and help them “perform the function for which they were designed” in “correcting behavior, reforming inmates, maintaining their dignity and preserving their physical and mental health as well as their rights”. Aal Mohsen was speaking at a human rights lecture in Al-Ahsa at the weekend in which he said the HRC was conducting its four-year program to qualify staff in becoming an “academic authority on human rights with master's degrees and doctorates”. “It is part of the HRC's efforts to promote a culture of human rights directed at professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers and others whose professions are deserving of academic knowledge in human rights through programs specifically targeting each profession, and to introduce human rights education into curriculums in public and university education,” Aal Mohsen said. The HRC vice chairman said that one of the most difficult and widespread issues facing the commission was domestic violence, a situation he attributed to a “change in the structure of society”. “Before, society was more bonded and cohesive in terms of the family and more considerate towards each other,” Aal Mohsen said. The HRC, he said, had dealt with “numerous” cases of child beatings and that a clear distinction was required between correctional methods and harmful methods. One of the HRC's most important tasks, according to Aal Mohsen, was also to ensure that government authorities applied the law in human rights-related areas. “The HRC has reviewed a number of laws, regulations and treaties that have been approved by the Kingdom, and this is an ongoing function of the HRC aimed at developing laws and regulations and bringing them into line with human rights,” he said.
