Today, 29 March 2022, ALQST launches a new campaign in support of the many activists and ordinary citizens detained and silenced in Saudi Arabia – featuring individual cases, highlighting their diversity, and calling for urgent and renewed international pressure for their unconditional release and total freedom.
The new campaign draws attention to the underlying, systemic nature of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, and how this affects countless individuals arrested for their rights activism, advocating for reform, or simply voicing unacceptable political or religious opinions, who are being held in detention or, having been released, still face heavy restrictions on their lives.
Saudi Arabia has been an absolute monarchy, with no political representation and few liberties, for almost 100 years. However, the situation has become significantly worse since King Salman came to the throne in 2015 and his son Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in 2017. Today there is no independent civil society, and free speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and political participation are all non-existent. The authorities have centralised all state power and brutally cracked down on all critical voices.
The gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and the ruthless round-up and torture of Saudi women human rights defenders, led to an international outcry and intense pressure on Saudi Arabia’s leaders to improve their dismal human rights record. Campaigning and publicity surrounding Riyadh’s G20 presidency in 2020, and the change of US administration in early 2021, added to this pressure, and resulted in some apparent reforms and minor concessions, including the conditional release of some high-profile prisoners.
But as the G20 spotlight faded, and as President Biden’s promise to “recalibrate” US-Saudi ties failed to drastically change relations, the Saudi authorities reverted to their habitual pattern of repression. In 2021 there were fresh waves of arbitrary arrests, further harsh sentencing of peaceful critics, and deliberate attempts to endanger the lives of prisoners of conscience. Further details can be found in ALQST’s latest annual report “The Spotlight Fades, Repression Mounts Again”.
Our new campaign highlights the diversity of the individuals who have fallen victim to the authorities’ wrath, including journalists, academics, religious scholars, business executives and even members of the ruling family, by telling their stories and tracing the abuses they have suffered.
The campaign also examines the systemic violations to which victims are typically subjected. All of the individuals featured have suffered arbitrary detention and had their fair trial rights violated. Some were prosecuted almost ten years ago and are still in prison today, including pioneers of the Saudi human rights movement like members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA). Others were arbitrarily arrested more recently but are still being detained without charge or facing prolonged trials.
Meanwhile, those in prison often face cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment behind bars. There has been a disturbing increase in cases of deliberate medical and administrative neglect – leading either recklessly or purposely to a number of deaths in detention – as well as frequent use of enforced disappearance. After significant international pressure, some prisoners of conscience have been released, either provisionally or on completion of their sentences, but even then only on stringent conditions that usually include arbitrary bans on travel, work and social media activity.
This remains the human rights reality in Saudi Arabia. Let’s not be fooled by the authorities’ rhetoric of reform and the immense PR machinery that labours to whitewash the country’s image, rebranding it as a cutting-edge technology hub or a luxury tourist destination, and luring mass sporting and entertainment events to the country. Instead, let’s rally behind the real drivers of reform in Saudi Arabia – the brave human rights defenders, advocates of reform and peaceful critics – and demand their immediate and unconditional freedom.
