The Saudi man’s wife, who managed to escape from the terrifying prison after one year, described her story in an interview with the Saudi Daily al-Sharq.
The woman, referred as Abir in the Sharq report, said, “I gave my husband all the inheritance left to me by my late father, by which he made a luxurious house, but he repaied my kindness with viciousness”.
According to the paper Abir said that, after her father died, her husband gathered the money they gave her and got married with his first wife again.
When she tried to take back her father’s inheritance, her husband pointed a gun at her and threatened to kill her, she added.
“He then threw me and my daughters in a room far away from Mecca and told my family that I was gone and I didn’t want to see anybody.”
“He appointed a guard to keep us from running away and he was the one who shared his food with us. Our cries and begging for freedom to the guard were denied because he was afraid to lose his job”.
Abir says one of her friends sent someone to follow her husband to find out where she is; but when they found the place she was kept they couldn't get the guard let them go. They even tried to bribe him but they were rejected.
Her friend manages to throw in a cellphone to the building which was sealed off by a concrete door and only had a window; she then becomes able to call the security for the first time after a year.
However the security replies her that they can’t enter the building and she has to go to them herself.
She says her husband used to beat them up all the time they were there and once she was beaten up several times in the head until she was unconscious.
Abir said her daughters were not safe either and once he started beating her 10-year-old girl until she started bleeding in the nose.
She continued her sad story by saying that her attempts to run away failed so many times but finally one day she was able to run from the small window of the room, the only opening in the wall.
Abir contacted with social affairs department and their forces went immediately to the place she was hiding. But Abir never knew that they would come by the one person she was terrified to see, her husband.
The man started pounding Abir as the security forces watched. He left after that, she said.
The security forces transformed Abir to al-Mansoure police headquarters where she was again beaten up by her husband, but this time they took him to prison, however not before he angrily lashed the poor woman with his heavy hands right in front of the eyes of the security.
Despite she filed a complaint against her husband for keeping her imprisoned for one year and hurting her, but Abir was highly worried that the authorities wouldn’t do anything to help her.
Her husband is now free and as she says, keeps threatening Abir and her daughters that he would shoot them dead if they didn’t go to Mecca.
Saudi Arabia government has been widely criticized for rights violations especially against women, children and migrant workers.
Husbands somehow own their wives and abusing them usually has no legal charges.
Story of a Saudi five-year old girl who was raped to death by her father grew international fury.
The man was convicted to eight years in prison following international condemnation.
A view of the room Abir was held with her two daughters.
SHI/SHI