The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)’s recently published 2022 Human Rights and Democracy Report highlights some of the key human rights issues in Saudi Arabia but does not fully reflect the gravity of the situation there, downplaying or overlooking certain abuses as well as discrepancies between Saudi laws on paper and in practice. ALQST calls once again for the UK to use its close ties with Riyadh much more robustly to challenge abuses and promote respect for human rights.
The FCDO report, which describes human rights developments around the world, categorises Saudi Arabia as one of 22 “human rights priority countries” due to the wide variety of human rights abuses routinely perpetrated in the kingdom, highlighting severe restrictions on freedom of expression and escalating use of the death penalty.
The report states that “restrictions on freedom of expression and political activity increased” in 2022, with the Anti-Cybercrime Law being used to charge and jail individuals who advocate for human rights or express dissent online, and “a notable increase in the frequency and severity of punishment for online activity”. However, it fails to mentions the equally draconian Counter-Terrorism Law of 2017, which has also been systematically used to curtail freedom of expression and in 2022 was used to sentence women’s rights activists Salma al-Shehab (a PhD student at a British university) and Nourah al-Qahtani to 27 and 45 years in prison respectively for peaceful social media activity. These are the only two Saudi individuals named in the report.
The FCDO correctly identifies some of the continuing infringements on Saudi women’s rights, and highlights the harsh restrictions still being imposed on women human rights defenders conditionally released from prison, as well as recognising that the oppressive male guardianship system has not yet been entirely abolished. However, it blames “popular social attitudes” for the persistence of patriarchal authority in Saudi society, disregarding the Saudi authorities’ role in perpetuating it, notably through the disappointing Personal Status Law (PSL) that came into effect in June 2022. ALQST is concerned to see the FCDO uncritically praising the PSL for “improving the rights of women on a range of issues”: while the new law does introduce some positive reforms, such as setting a minimum age for marriage, it also enshrines many pernicious features of the male guardianship system regarding marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. The PSL also contains legal loopholes that allow for discretionary interpretation, diminishing the impact of any positive changes, as is the case with underage marriage.
The FCDO rightly decries the Saudi authorities’ dramatically increased use of the death penalty in 2022, noting that the kingdom “carried out 196 executions, around triple the number of executions in 2021”. It notes that this includes the first drug-related executions since 2020, “thereby ending the unofficial moratorium” on use of the death penalty for drug-related offences, but fails to mention empty promises to discontinue use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders: nine young men are currently at imminent risk of execution in Saudi Arabia for offences allegedly committed when they were under the age of 18.
The report says there are problems pertaining to “transparency, consistency and accountability in the justice system”, and that the Saudi authorities restrict international observers’ access to trials. Much more could be said, however, about the Saudi judiciary’s lack of independence and the failure to respect due process, fair trial guarantees and legal safeguards. The FCDO reports optimistically on the Saudi authorities’ “desire to reform their legal frameworks and justice system”, which it says the UK supports, citing a forthcoming Penal Code that has been promised since February 2021 but has yet to be published.
ALQST’s Head of Monitoring and Advocacy Lina Alhathloul comments: “Rather than taking their proclaimed legal reforms at face value, the UK government should judge the Saudi authorities by their actions. Is a judicial system that hands down 45-year prison sentences for peaceful tweeting one that is genuinely seeking to reform? And when important trials are held behind closed doors, with UK diplomats denied permission to attend, is this a system the UK should be supporting?”
ALQST endorses the FCDO’s decision to keep Saudi Arabia on its list of human rights priority countries, and welcomes the report’s inclusion of some of the key human rights issues in the kingdom. We are concerned, however, by some notable omissions and the overly positive framing of some of the announced reforms, which should not be allowed to mask the harsh repression still taking place.
We applaud the pledge that the UK “will continue to engage closely, collaboratively and creatively with Saudi counterparts on human rights”, but we urge government officials to challenge the Saudi authorities’ violations much more robustly, based on a more realistic assessment of the true situation on the ground.
