Country: Saudi Arabia

Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s rise to power set Saudi Arabia on a new course branded by the authorities as a reform initiative, but which has in fact been marked by a harsh crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful activism. Hundreds of public figures, human rights activists, scholars, businessmen and members of the royal family have been arrested in a bid to centralise power.

Saudi Arabia’s judicial system is based on the Sharia as interpreted by the Council of Senior Scholars. Due to the absence of a formal Constitution and a Criminal Code, legal uncertainty prevails, and large discretionary powers are bestowed upon non-independent judges, which often use these powers to prosecute peaceful dissidents under the pretext of national security and terrorism.

Arbitrary detention continues to be practised systematically, with individuals often spending months or even years in incommunicado detention, at times being tortured and then sentenced following court proceedings that severely violate fair trial guarantees. At the same time, the country maintains one of the highest rates of the death penalty worldwide.

Externally, Saudi Arabia continues its military campaign in Yemen, a conflict that has been marked by grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and has plunged Yemen in to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Saudi Arabia and the UAE

MENA Rights Group joins 11 other NGOs in condemning Meta’s decision to restrict human rights accounts in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the request of the two governments, and calling on Meta to act in line with its human rights responsibilities.

NGOs call for immediate release of Saudi Wikipedian Osama Khalid, whose 14-year sentence was upheld

MENA Rights Group joins 7 other NGOs in an urgent call on Saudi Arabia to immediately release medical doctor and Wikipedia administrator, Osama Khalid, arrested in 2020 for peaceful online expression and now sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Saudi Arabia surpasses 2,000 executions under King Salman

MENA Rights Group joins 37 other NGOs in a joint statement expressing concern over the significant escalation in the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has surpassed 2,000 executions, marking an acceleration since the accession of King Salman and the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We call […]

UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calls for immediate release of two Saudi Shi’a protestors currently on death row

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an Opinion qualifying the detention of Saudi protestors Mohammad Labbad and Mohammad Abdullah al-Faraj as arbitrary and in violation of international human rights standards.

UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemns executions of Egyptian nationals for drug-related crimes in Saudi Arabia

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an Opinion finding that the detention and death sentences of three Egyptian nationals by Saudi authorities for drug-related crimes was arbitrary and that their subsequent executions amounted to an arbitrary deprivation of life.

INTERPOL’s role in facilitating transnational repression in the MENA region

Background For many years, the systems of the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) have been abused to target political dissidents and human rights defenders and facilitate acts of transnational repression. INTERPOL red notices — requests to law enforcement bodies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest individuals pending extradition — are frequently misused by repressive states […]

Enforced disappearances in the context of transnational repression in the MENA

1 Introduction 1.1 Transnational repression in the MENA According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), transnational repression refers to “acts conducted or directed by a State, or its proxy, to deter, silence or punish dissent, criticism or human rights advocacy towards it, expressed from outside its territory.”[1] These acts often […]

Saudi cartoonist detained and sentenced under cybercrime laws

Mohammed al-Ghamdi is a Saudi artist, cartoonist and teacher whose artwork focuses on economic issues, family dynamics, and broader socio-economic themes. Al-Ghamdi was arrested on February 13, 2018 by State Security Presidency (SSP) officers in a cafe in al-Baha, near the school where he was teaching at the time. After his arrest, al-Ghamdi was permitted […]

NGOs condemn recent UN agreement with Saudi State Security Head implicated in Khashoggi murder

MENA Rights Group and ALQST for Human Rights address an open letter to Mr. Alexandre Zouev, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism and Executive Director of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT), expressing human rights concerns on the UN office’s new agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Presidency of State Security (PSS).

Joint NGO statement: Saudi Arabia must halt all executions and uphold commitments on child defendants and drug offenders

MENA Rights Group joins over 50 NGOs in calling on Saudi Arabia to immediately halt all executions and uphold its commitments to end the death penalty for child defendants and drug offenders following the alarming execution of 300 people in 2025.