The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued Opinion No. 31/2025, concluding that the detention of Yemeni national Mohammed Ali Hussein Al-Wadaei in Saudi Arabia is arbitrary and violates international human rights law. The Group called for his immediate release as well as full reparation.
In its Opinion No. 1/2025, issued on 1 April 2025, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concluded that the detention of Yemeni national Mohsen Saleh Nasser Al-Awlaqi was arbitrary and remains unlawful, in clear violation of international law.
On 30 May 2025, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued Opinion No. 37/2025, concluding that the detention of Bassam Al Jalladi, a Yemeni national detained in Saudi Arabia since 2019, is arbitrary.
The Saudi authorities have released academic Khaled Alodah, brother of the prominent preacher and scholar Dr. Salman bin Fahd Alodah, after eight years of arbitrary detention. He had been arrested for sharing information about his brother’s arrest, who remains arbitrarily detained under inhumane conditions, despite a decision by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) describing the detention of both brothers as a flagrant violation of international law.
Alkarama has learned from Saudi human rights sources that the authorities have finally released Abdulaziz Al-Shubaily, a human rights activist and member of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA), after nearly eight years of detention.
Alkarama firmly condemns the execution of Saudi journalist and activist Turki Al-Jasser by the Saudi authorities, approximately seven years after his arrest and enforced disappearance on charges related to the exercise of his right to freedom of expression and opinion.
On 8 April 2025, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, expressed concern over the continued detention of Saudi human rights activist Mohammed Saleh Al-Bajadi, despite the fact that his sentence officially ended in 2023.
Saudi authorities have finally released two prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders, namely prominent academic Mohammad Fahad Al-Qahtani and lawyer Issa Al-Nukhaifi, after years of arbitrary detention under unfair sentences resulting from unjust trials. Alkarama worked on their cases within the framework of the United Nations special procedures.
