"The Soaring Fantasy, The Harsh Reality", this year’s in-depth annual report of ALQST for Human Rights, documents and discusses key human rights developments in 2023.
Introduction
The glaring contrast between, on the one hand, the multibillion-dollar, video-game-inspired vanity projects of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and, on the other, the growing numbers of Saudi citizens fleeing the kingdom in search of freedom and safety, grows ever more stark.
In 2023 the Saudi leadership intensified its efforts to create the narrative of technologically innovative social and economic transformation, and to pursue control, through several ambitious purchases, of globally popular sports like football and golf. Yet behind the glittering projections of cyber-smart cities, endless carbon capture and improbable ski resorts in the desert – seen by others as unrealistic, absurd and even dystopian – the trampling of human rights and wholescale repression of the Saudi people continued as before.
Numerous activists and private individuals were arbitrarily arrested and slapped with jaw-droppingly severe jail sentences – and in one case the death penalty – for peaceful social media activity. Many more were cruelly and arbitrarily banned from travelling outside the country. Women, despite vaunted reforms, remain second-class citizens.
The ruthless silencing of independent voices, and the impossibility for Saudi citizens to voice their opinions and priorities for public policy and stand up for their rights, prompted ALQST, at its annual Human Rights Day conference in 2023, to look at the potential for Saudi activists working abroad to further the human rights agenda. Here, ALQST plays a vital role because of its almost unique ability both to gather and analyse information about conditions on the ground in Saudi Arabia and to convey the situation in all its harsh reality to the outside world. In this year’s Annual Report we have included examples of international media coverage where ALQST’s research has been an important, or even primary, source of trusted information.
In today’s challenging global situation, it is more important than ever for the international community – politicians, business leaders and respected figures in the world of sport and entertainment, as well as the general public – to take principled action wherever they can to champion human rights, and to resist the Saudi leadership’s efforts to whitewash their deplorable record.
