Loujain al-Hathloul Released From Prison in Saudi Arabia

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: It is simply great that your sister has been released from this detention, this prison, although you say that she is not free yet. I just want to ask you to respond to her condition because she says that she was sexually abused. She, we know, spent a long time in solitary confinement, and indeed, she says she was tortured. Tell me about what happened to her.

LINA AL-HATHLOUL, SISTER OF SAUDI ACTIVIST, LOUJAIN AL-HATHLOUL: Yes, absolutely. So when Loujain was first arrested in May 2018, she was first held in (inaudible) for approximately three weeks and then she called us and our parents saying that she was in an unofficial prison. I think she used to called it palace (ph). And for months until August 2018 we didn`t know what this palace was. And after my parents first visit they saw her. She was shaking. She had bruises on her body. She had red marks on her neck, but she wouldn`t say anything. And months later after the Khashoggi murder, after the reports on the torture in the (inaudible), my parents knew. They saw Loujain. She told them that she was in an unofficial prison. So they told her, look, Loujain, we`ve read about everything. Now you really have to tell us the truth. And that`s when Loujain broke into tears and told them that what she used to call a palace was actually a torture facility and there where she was electrocuted, she was flogged, and she even showed my parents her thighs and they were blacked with bruises. She could barely sit because of the torture. She was sexually abused. And what`s important to note is one of the people who was overseeing the torture was our Crown Price, MBS`s right-hand man, (inaudible) Ghafarri (ph). So really it`s something that was frightening for her even to – even to talk about it and to say that the highest (inaudible) in Saudi Arabia were complicit in this torture.