RIYADH — Prisons all over the Kingdom have completed their arrangements to receive violating expatriates after the end of the amnesty period on Nov. 3, a local daily reported on Tuesday quoting the director general of prisons. Following recent instructions from the Interior Ministry, violating expatriates will be detained in normal prisons instead of the special detention facilities under the Passports Department. Subsequently, detention rooms, buildings, utilities, personnel and all properties of the departments concerned with the affairs of expatriates have been shifted to the Directorate General of Prisons. "We have plans to deal with overcrowding of prisoners at the correctional facilities and to contain the spread of any contagious diseases among them," Director General of Prisons Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Al-Hamzi told Al-Watan newspaper. Al-Hamzi said prisons on Monday started to receive the personnel and properties of the passports authorities' departments concerned with the affairs of expatriates in addition to detained expatriates. He said he has received reports from prison directors all over the country that the process was going smoothly. Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Prisons in the Eastern Province has also started receiving the property and the staff of the local passports authorities' expatriate affairs department. Director of Eastern Province prisons Maj. Gen. Abdulrahman Al-Ruwaisan said prisons all over the province have already received property and personnel from the department. "A total of 250 expatriates who were detained at the Passports Department in Dammam were transported to the city's central prison," he said. Al-Ruwaisan said six officers and 33 privates who manned the department of the affairs of expatriates in Dammam have joined the staff of the central prison. "The Passports Department is now only concerned with issuing passports and iqamas while the prisons will be taking care of the violating expatriates," he said. Al-Ruwaisan said the decision was successfully applied in a number of towns and cities in the province such as Jubail, Hafr Al-Batin, Al-Ahsa, Al-Khafji and Dammam.
