Human Rights Concerns

 

The push for political reform, occurring simultaneously with an increasingly unsettled security situation, has created a very unpredictable human rights environment. Killings by both government security forces and armed groups occur periodically, either in attacks or shootouts. Torture and ill-treatment persist, as do incommunicado detention, prolonged detention without charge, and unfair trials. There are scores of political prisoners and possible prisoners of conscience. Saudi Arabia continues to use flogging and amputations as punishments. Executions, beheadings with a sword, occur regularly and are disproportionately carried out against foreign nationals. Foreign workers are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, particularly female domestic workers, who have virtually no protection at all. About 600 Iraqis remain stranded in Rafha refugee camp since the 1991 Gulf War, denied the opportunity to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia.

Nowhere has the discussion of political reform been more animated than on the issue of women’s rights, though there has been little real progress. Municipal elections were held in early 2005 for half the seats in the Kingdom’s municipalities, but women were excluded for participation, and proposals to allow women to drive have been shelved. Awareness of the problem of violence against women has increased as a result of the severe beating of well-known TV personality Rania al-Baz by her husband, but there have been few changes to prevent or provide redress for such violence. Suspected homosexuals have been subjected to flogging. Though there has been some improvement, freedom of expression remains extremely curtailed, and discrimination on the basis of religion is absolute. Shiites face discrimination in all walks of life, and non-Muslim foreign nationals are subjected to harassment, detention, abuse and summary deportation. Executions have been carried out for witchcraft and apostasy.

Over one hundred Saudis are detained without charge by the US at Guantanamo Bay.

Read the Conclusions and Recommendations of the UN Committee Against Torture: Saudi Arabia – June 2002. »

Read “Bad Dreams: Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia,” a Human Rights Watch report from July 2004. »

Read “Writers Condemn Conviction of Poet, Two Other Reform Advocates In Saudi Arabia” – PEN American Center news release, May 2005. »