Riyadh: The video of Saudi security services assaulting a group of women at an orphanage in Khamis Mushait Governorate, Saudi Arabia, went viral on social media on Wednesday.
The videos circulated showed dozens of Saudi police and others in Saudi national dress chasing the girls inside the house, and beating them using wooden sticks and belts.
The video then shows a man dragging one of the women by her hair as she screams, while another beats her with a belt.
According to the leaked photos of the incident of storming the orphanage, the Saudi security services arrested a number of girls, while the authorities did not announce the reason or the place of arrest.
It is not yet immediately clear how many women were detained in the incident. Saudi authorities have yet to release details.
After circulating clips of the incident, Prince of Asir, Turki bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz on Wednesday issued an order on Wednesday, to form a committee to investigate the published photos and videos, related to the Social Education Center in Khamis Mushait Governorate.
For its part, the Saudi Human Rights Commission issued a statement, on Wednesday, saying that it had formed a specialized group to follow up on the incident of the Social Education House in the Asir region.
The Washington-based human rights organization Dawn denounced the incident, and said that the girls were assaulted and beaten because of their sit-ins to demand better conditions inside the orphanage, according to witnesses.
The Saudi Public Prosecution announced, on Wednesday, that it had “initiated an investigation into the incident of the Social Education House in the Asir region.”
The Public Prosecution office said, “We began early on to investigate the incident of the destruction of public money in one of the welfare agencies in the Khamis Mushait governorate, in light of the spread of informational content on social media,” referring to a video of orphans abuse.
The #KhamisMushaitorphans went viral on Twitter within hours, quickly becoming the most popular tag in Saudi Arabia.
