P.K. Abdul Ghafour I Arab News —

JEDDAH: The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) received 4,522 complaints relating to the violation of rights last year, including arbitrary job terminations and domestic abuse.

“There was a 16 percent increase in complaints received in 2008 compared to the previous year,” the society’s annual report said.

About one third of complaints were related to administrative matters. The cases focused on arbitrary decisions regarding termination of service, changing job positions, demanding financial dues, unemployment issues and arbitrary transfer of jobs.

The NSHR said it had looked into all cases through its six nationwide branches. The number of complaints received from men exceeded those from women. “We received only 1,495 complaints from women last year,” said Mufleh Al-Qahtani, NSHR president.

Family violence cases were related to physical torture, prevention of education and marriage, torture under the influence of drugs, sexual harassment, preventing children from seeing their mothers and requests for shelter.

Speaking about complaints related to the Kingdom’s prisons, Al-Qahtani said these included complaints about detention without trial, requests for the release of prisoners who have completed their jail terms, attacks on fellow inmates, demand for compensation, maltreatment by judges and complaints about long procedures.

The labor issues were mainly related to forcible deportation, nonpayment of dues, denial of vacations and forcing workers to pay for exit-re-entry visas.

He said complaints related to administrative issues accounted for 33.8 percent of total complaints received last year. Administrative cases numbered 1,530, prison-related cases 794 and labor issues 543. “We have received 306 cases related to domestic abuse,” he said.

The society’s branch office in Riyadh received the largest number of complaints while its office in Makkah received the lowest number.