News – Page 2 – MENA Rights Group

On June 18, 2026, MENA Rights Group, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and ALQST for Human Rights delivered a joint oral statement at the 62nd session of the Human Rights Council, during the interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on summary, extrajudicial and arbitrary executions, highlighting the grave human rights violations and severe suffering that result from the continued and arbitrary use of the death penalty in the Gulf region, Iran, and Iraq.

MENA Rights Group joins 11 other NGOs in condemning Meta's decision to restrict human rights accounts in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the request of the two governments, and calling on Meta to act in line with its human rights responsibilities.

MENA Rights Group joins 7 other NGOs in an urgent call on Saudi Arabia to immediately release medical doctor and Wikipedia administrator, Osama Khalid, arrested in 2020 for peaceful online expression and now sentenced to 14 years in prison.

MENA Rights Group joins 12 other NGOs, in a joint urgent appeal to world leaders to call on Bahrain to end the practice of citizenship stripping and abide by its international human rights obligations.

On World Press Freedom Day 2026, the government of Bahrain continues to criminalise dissent through laws that violate Bahrain’s international human rights obligations, through heavy restrictions on media ownership and the arbitrary arrest of those who peacefully express their views online or in peaceful gatherings. This suppression has strangled Bahrain’s media and online expression and […]

MENA Rights Group joins 37 other NGOs in a joint statement expressing concern over the significant escalation in the use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has surpassed 2,000 executions, marking an acceleration since the accession of King Salman and the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We call for an immediate moratorium on executions, as well as a review of all death penalty cases in line with international obligations.

At its 30th session, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances reviewed Iraq’s implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and issued its observations highlighting serious shortcomings.

An award-winning Kuwaiti-American journalist has been detained since March 3 for sharing publicly available, verified footage. Journalism is not a crime.

MENA Rights Group joins 19 NGOs in calling on the Government of Lebanon to recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over crimes committed on its territory since October 8, 2023, to ensure accountability and justice for victims.

MENA Rights Group joins 40 human rights organisations calling on Egyptian authorities to immediately release prominent activist, poet and political writer Ahmed Douma from pretrial detention.

EuroMed Rights, Human Rights Watch and MENA Rights Group have addressed a letter to Pope XIV ahead of his historic visit to Algeria, scheduled from 13 to 15 April 2026. In the letter, the organisations urge him to raise, both in private with the Algerian authorities and in his public communications, a number of pressing human rights concerns documented in the country. These relate, in particular, to violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief affecting religious minorities, the ongoing crackdown on civic space, and the serious violations perpetrated against refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants.

MENA Rights Group joins 10 other NGOs in an oral statement delivered by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, raising concern over two proposed bills that would expand the scope of the death penalty in Israel.