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.
Alkarama has filed an urgent appeal to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and other special procedures, calling for immediate action regarding FIFA’s bidding process for the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
Alkarama has learned that a Saudi court sentenced Yemeni pilgrim Mahmood Hamid Qaid Al-Broushi to 18 years in prison. He has been detained in Dhahban prison since April 2022 under fabricated charges and subjected to a trial lacking fairness, according to testimonies from the victim’s relatives.
Important deliberations related to the human rights situation in the country were formulated during the interactive dialogue of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia before the Human Rights Council, which was held on July 4, 2024, at the
On 31 May 2024, Alkarama submitted to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) the situation of Bassam AL JALLADI and Mohammed AL WADAEI, two Yemeni nationals arbitrarily detained by the Saudi authorities.
Bassam AL JALLADI, returned by Yemen to Saudi Arabia
“The prolonged solitary confinement of religious scholar and critic Safar bin Abdulrahman al-Hawali without trial and necessary accommodations for his disability constituted serious violations, including arbitrary detention and torture or ill-treatment,” said the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in a statement dated 15 May 2024.
Alkarama condemns the continued detention by the Saudi authorities of people who have condemned human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories and calls for their immediate release.
Alkarama has reached out to the Saudi Human Rights Commission and the National Society for Human Rights, two state institutions with the shared objective of promoting human rights in the country, inviting them to collaborate with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding the implementation of Opinions issued by this United Nations special p
