Event: Review of the Human Rights Condition in Saudi Arabia
The Washington Center for Human Rights is hosting a congressional briefing titled “Review of the Human Rights Condition in Saudi Arabia.” The event, led by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, is scheduled for March 29th from 11 to 12 p.m. in Cannon Building 454. Hiba Abdulwahhab, an independent researcher focusing on MENA region politics and society, will be the moderator. Panellists include Saif Al Mothana, Advocacy Relations Director at the Washington Center for Human Rights; Joey Shea, Saudi Arabi & UAE Researcher, HRW; and Dr Nabeel Khoury, former US Diplomat. The speakers will critically examine and review the human rights conditions in the KSA.
Human rights in Saudi Arabia are a matter of concern and debate. Known for its executions of political dissidents and opponents, the regime of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been indicted and denounced by various international institutions and governments for breaching human rights within the country. An absolute monarchy under the House of Saud, the regime is consistently classified among the “worst of the worst” in Freedom House’s annual survey of political and civil rights and was in 2023 rated as the world’s most authoritarian regime. The monarchy functions to whitewash its chronology of human rights abuses.
According to Amnesty International, Saudi authorities targeted individuals for peacefully exerting their rights to freedom of expression and association. The Specialized Criminal Court pushed and sentenced to prolonged prison terms individuals following grossly unjust trials for their peaceful manifestation or association, or for assembling community organizations. Human rights defenders were crushed in prison and faced arbitrary travel prohibitions following their conditional discharge from prison.
Courts resorted to the death sentence following grossly one-sided trials, including in cases of individuals who were children at the moment of the alleged crime, and people who were executed for a broad range of crimes. Thousands of citizens were subjected to forced evictions in the seaside city of Jeddah. Migrant workers persisted in being abused and manipulated under the sponsorship system and thousands were arbitrarily imprisoned in inhumane conditions, afflicted and otherwise ill-treated, and involuntarily returned to their residence country as part of a nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Women and girls remain subject to prejudice in law and practice. The male control system was enshrined into law in 2022 which means that women must have a male lawful guardian – and they cannot determine who this is.
Moreover, The Saudi authorities regulate domestic media and journalists can be jailed for a variety of ‘crimes’. Saudi authorities including the MBS sanctioned the vicious murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi after he had been pressing the government. A joint declaration released by 36 countries at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2019, denounced the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, called for the emancipation of Saudi women’s rights activists imprisoned in May 2018, and demanded the kingdom stop using counterterrorism laws to target dissidents and human rights activists. Protests and demonstrations are prohibited. Those who defy the prohibition face arrest, prosecution and detention on charges such as ‘inciting people against the authorities’.
