SHADLI Al Howeiti was force-fed in prison after a hunger strike, months before he was handed the death penalty for resisting his tribe’s displacement to make way for Neom megaproject, a futuristic city being developed near Jeddah as part of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s plans to modernise Saudi Arabia, Middle East Eye reported.

Alqst, a UK-based rights group, has reported that Shadli was tortured in prison, .

Shadli was arrested in 2020 for opposing the forcible eviction of the Howeitat tribe. This May, according to Alqst, he went on hunger strike to protest his ill-treatment in prison, including being placed in solitary confinement.

After two weeks, authorities at the Dhahban prison in Jeddah — the same facility where women’s rights activists say they were sexually harassed and tortured in 2018 — inserted a tube into his stomach to force-feed him, a form of torture, Alqst said on Monday.

Saudi Arabia’s specialised criminal court handed death sentences in October to Shadli al Howeiti and two of his relatives, Ibrahim al Howeiti and Ataullah al Howeiti, who were also arrested in 2020 over their resistance to eviction.

Ibrahim al Howeiti, Alqst said, was a member of a delegation of local residents who met in 2020 the commission charged with securing government titles to the lands required for the project. Ataullah al Howeiti has been seen in several video clips “talking about the misery of his family and all of the other displaced residents” who also faced eviction, the rights group said.

“These shocking sentences once again show the Saudi authorities’ callous disregard for human rights, and the cruel measures they are prepared to take to punish members of the Huwaitat tribe for legitimately protesting against forced eviction from their homes,” said Alqst’s Abdullah Aljuraywi.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2023