At least 10 football fans have been arrested and their club’s board of directors dissolved in a hardline response by the Saudi authorities to chanting at a recent match that they deemed to be “sectarian”.
Contrary to claims of liberalisation in Saudi Arabia, the authorities are continuing to suppress free speech and freedom of religion. On February 4, the Ministry of Sport dissolved the management board of Al Safa FC, of Safwa City, in the kingdom’s Shia-majority Eastern Province, over chanting by supporters during a match on January 24.
The European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights Organisation (ESOHR) and ALQST have received information indicating that 10 members of Al Safa’s supporters association have been arrested and sent to Qatif General Prison, and more than 150 have been called in for questioning. ESOHR and ALQST have seen a list of names of those arrested and while they do not intend to publish it, they consider the arrests to have been essentially arbitrary, based as they are on the chanting of slogans and similar non-criminal acts.
The ministry said in a statement that this was “with reference to the violations committed in this respect by the supporters association of Al Safa FC in contravention of Article 1/8 of the Basic Regulations for sports clubs, which require ‘adherence to the laws and regulations in force in the kingdom’”.
In addition, the Discipline and Ethics Committee of the Saudi Football Federation announced a series of penalties against Al Safa, requiring it to pay a fine of SR200,000 ($53,000) and imposing a ban on spectators at the team’s next five matches.
From video footage of the match posted on social media, it appears that the crowd were chanting Shia religious songs that are well known among the Shia community and do not contain anything sectarian or offensive.
ESOHR and ALQST note that the mounting repression in Saudi Arabia, from which not even sporting venues are exempt, is happening alongside the government’s efforts to attract investment and set up major football tournaments. They regard treating religious chants and songs as “expressions of sectarianism” as an attack on religious freedoms, and an arbitrary use of legal provisions.
The two human rights organisations maintain that all of Saudi Arabia’s official bodies – ministries, agencies and committees – are now party to the authorities’ violations of freedoms and basic rights, including bodies that are supposed to be focused on sport, and that this forms part of a policy of intimidating the Saudi public that has become apparent in recent years.
