Articles for Saudi Arabia

Saudi preacher Khaled Mohammed Hamad Al-Rashid is due to complete in August 2020 a period of 15 years of imprisonment imposed by the Saudi authorities following an unfair trial and despite of an Opinion from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) condemning his detention.

Today, Thursday, May 28, 2020, the Saudi authorities released the activist and Yemeni government official, Sayyid Abdul Karim Thuail, who was arrested at Jeddah airport on March 12, 2020.
The Thuail family thanked Alkarama and other organizations, who raised his case and expressed solidarity with them, noting that Mr. Thuail was in fact being held incommunicado in al-Ha'ir prison in Riyadh.

Alkarama sent today an urgent appeal to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances regarding Mr. Abdul Karim Thuail, who was forcibly disappeared by the authorities in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Abdul Karim Hussein Ali Thuail, 34 years old and the father of a child, is a Yemeni government official and former human rights defender. He was arrested at Jeddah International Airport on 12 March 2020, and disappeared from that moment.

Today, Friday, April 24, 2020, Alkarama informed the United Nations about the death of prominent Saudi human rights defender Dr. Abdullah Al-Hamid "Abu Bilal", calling on it to take a position regarding the fate of an exceptional figure who vowed his life to peacefully work for freedoms, justice, political reform and human rights in Saudi Arabia. .

On November 12, 2019, Alkarama submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, the case of Yemeni Officer Ibrahim al-Shamsani, tortured to death in a Saudi Arabian prison, as confirmed by a coroner's report.

On April 3, 2019 and on the request of Alkarama, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued a decision calling for the immediate release of Saudi human rights defender Mohammad Abdullah Al Otaibi, who was arrested on May 24, 2017, at the Hamad International Airport in Doha by Qatari security forces, and then forcibly deported to Saudi Arabia on May 28, 2017.

On March 14, 2019, the UN Human Rights Council (

On November 9, 2018, the United Nations Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) adopted a draft report following the review of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record on November 5, 2018.

(Geneva – October 10, 2018) – Alkarama, ALQST and Reporters Without Borders have requested the urgent intervention of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) in the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who remains missing more than a week after he was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

(Geneva, September 24, 2018) – On September 20, 2018, Alkarama submitted the case of prominent Islamic Scholar Salman Al Odah to the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights (SRCT).