Advocacy / Saudi Arabia
Bulgaria: Saudi activist at risk of deportation
MENA Rights Group and 19 organisations call on Bulgarian authorities to immediately grant asylum to Saudi human rights defender Abdulrahman al-Khalidi.
Joint statement: urgent demand to stop executions and investigate human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia
MENA Rights Group joins 13 other NGOs in calling on Saudi authorities to refrain from carrying out the death sentence of dozens of prisoners, most Egyptian nationals, held in Tabuk prison.
Saudi Arabia: Public Investment Fund Meeting Whitewashes Abuses
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is sponsoring an investment conference in Miami and further whitewashing the country’s egregious human rights record, five human rights groups including MENA Rights Group said today. The PIF’s Future Investment Initiative Institute (FII Institute) Priority Summit is to be held in Miami from February 19 to 21, 2025.
Open letter to INTERPOL on the agreement for a new Regional Bureau for the Middle East and North Africa in Saudi Arabia
After the announcement of a new agreement between Saudi Arabia and INTERPOL to open a Regional Bureau for the Middle East and North Africa in Riyadh, MENA Rights Group and ALQST for Human Rights address an open letter to INTERPOL inviting the organisation to reconsider their decision.
Saudi Arabia continues to threaten the lives of minors, disregarding the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention's recent Opinion
Following a request for opinion filed by MENA Rights Group and the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) found that the detention and death sentence of five Saudi individuals who participated in protests in the Qatif region of Saudi Arabia while they were minors, violates international human rights law and qualifies as arbitrary.
Joint letter to US State Secretary: help secure the release of Ahmed Kamel
In a joint letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, MENA Rights Group joins partner organisations in urging US authorities to help secure the release of Ahmed Kamel, an Egyptian national detained in Saudi Arabia who faces imminent extradition to Egypt.
NGOs welcome the reduction of Salma al-Shehab’s sentence, but continue to call for her unconditional release
MENA Rights Group joins civil society organisations in welcoming the reduction of the prison sentence of Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi prisoner of conscience.
Uncovering racial discrimination in Saudi Arabia: findings of the CERD Committee
On November 27 and 28, 2024, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination examined Saudi Arabia’s combined tenth and eleventh periodic reports. The Committee issued its Concluding Observations on December 10, 2024 and found a number of violations to the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by the Saudi authorities.
Civil society, UN Special Rapporteur alarmed about transnational repression in the MENA region
During an event at the UN Headquarters in New York, civil society organisations and the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism raised their concerns regarding the troubling pattern of transnational repression in the MENA region.
NGOs call on Saudi Arabia to improve women’s rights under the scrutiny of the CEDAW Committee
MENA Rights Group, Amnesty International, ALQST for Human Rights and the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights call on Saudi Arabia to improve women's rights in the country and to abide by the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.