Since coming to power, Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), has effectively quashed all dissent at home while investing Saudi Arabia’s significant financial resources to launder the Kingdom’s image abroad, severely dented in 2018 by the brutal killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Increasingly since 2021 however, football players, pop stars and social media influencers have all streamed to the Kingdom for star-studded events at desert tourist locations or mega-real estate projects designed to dazzle and distract attention from the ever-worsening repression.
From the start, Mohammad bin Salman sought to position himself as a progressive reformer who, under his flagship agenda “Vision 2030,” vowed to transform Saudi Arabia into “a thriving country in which all citizens can fulfill their dreams, hopes and ambitions.”
In February 2021, Mohammed bin Salman announced a package of legislative reforms that he said would “preserve rights, bolster the principles of justice, enforce transparency, protect human rights and achieve comprehensive and sustainable development.” This package of reforms includes the first Penal Code for Discretionary Sentences (Penal Code).
Amnesty International’s report analyzes a leaked version of the draft penal code. The draft – in the form that was leaked in July 2022 – does not protect human rights, but rather codifies and entrenches existing problematic judicial practices that violate Saudi Arabia’s stated commitments to advance rights and its commitments under international law.
Read the full report, “Manifesto for Repression: Saudi Arabia’s Forthcoming Penal Code Must Uphold Human Rights in Line with International Law and Standards.”