MENA Rights Group (MRG) is a Geneva-based legal advocacy non-governmental organisation defending and promoting fundamental rights and freedoms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Adopting a holistic approach, MENA Rights Group works at both the individual and structural level, representing victims of human rights violations before international legal mechanisms. In order to ensure the non-repetition of these violations, MRG identifies patterns and root causes of violations and brings key issues to the attention of relevant stakeholders to call for legal and policy reform.
The protection of freedom of opinion and expression, online and offline, is an essential part of MRG’s work. Many of the cases MRG documents concern human rights defenders, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens targeted for peaceful dissent online and offline, criticism of the authorities or human rights advocacy, whether expressed in their country or from abroad. MRG’s thematic priorities, interconnected with the protection of freedom of expression, include the impact of security measures and counter-terrorism policies on human rights, transnational repression, and the death penalty.
In the context of the Special Rapporteur’s call for inputs to inform his vision-setting report and strategic priorities for 2026-2029, MRG would like to highlight three trends of particular concern in the MENA region: the securitisation of expression through counter-terrorism, cybercrime and “extremism” frameworks, including its use to retaliate against those who engage with the United Nations (UN); transnational repression against those who speak out from abroad, notably facilitated by regional and international cooperation mechanisms; and the use of the death penalty to punish expression and peaceful dissent.
These trends cut across the areas identified in the Special Rapporteur’s preliminary framework, including criminalisation and arbitrary detention, transnational repression and exile, and international cooperation with the UN human rights system.
Across the MENA region, security and counter-terrorism laws, measures and rhetoric are systematically employed to restrict civic space and target human rights defenders, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens for peacefully defending human rights or expressing critical views on state policies and authorities. While the adoption of such frameworks accelerated after 9/11, they became especially embedded and stringent following the uprisings of 2011, which saw waves of peaceful protests demanding political reform and the respect of human rights. State authorities across the region responded by cracking down on the civic space the uprisings had sought to open, notably by expanding and instrumentalising their counter-terrorism and national security frameworks as tools of repression.
These frameworks typically define terrorism by reference to vague notions such as threats to “national unity”, “public order”, or “state stability”, without restricting it to violent acts and leaving authorities wide discretion to determine what conduct falls within their scope. In Algeria, article 87 bis of the Penal Code defines terrorism as any act targeting “state security, national unity, stability and the normal functioning of institutions”, including acts aimed at “occupy[ing] public spaces through gatherings”. Although the Human Rights Committee criticised this definition as “overly broad and vague” in 2018, the authorities have since further expanded it in 2021 and 2024. UN Special Procedures have warned that this definition could “create a risk of criminalising the legitimate exercise of fundamental rights”. In Saudi Arabia, article 1 of the 2017 Counter-Terrorism Law defines a terrorist crime as any act committed to “disturb public order, destabilise national security or State stability, [or] threaten national unity”. UN experts warned that this risks “the conflation of domestic protest, dissent, or peaceful defence of human rights with terrorism”.
As social media became a central tool for the exercise of free speech, the defence of human rights, and the expression of dissenting and critical views, state authorities increasingly turned to the systematic targeting of online expression by deploying vague and overbroad definitions of terrorism to criminalise social media posts, private messages, hashtags and online videos. In Algeria, trade unionist Ali Mammeri was sentenced on appeal in February 2026 to 10 years in prison for “apology for terrorism” over private messages and online publications that UN experts described as “expressing legitimate disagreements with government management”. In Saudi Arabia, fitness instructor Manahel al-Otaibi was sentenced under the Counter-Terrorism Law to 11 years in prison, later reduced to five, for social media posts advocating for women’s rights. Israel’s 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law criminalises “publishing words of praise, support or sympathy” for a terrorist organisation and, since a November 2023 amendment, even the “systematic and continuous consumption” of its publications. Between October 2023 and April 2025, at least 645 individuals, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians, were arrested on speech-related offences under the law.
Beyond counter-terrorism legislation, authorities rely on cybercrime and other laws targeting online content, and more recently on “extremism” legislation, to criminalise expression deemed to harm “national security”, “social cohesion”, or “community peace”. In Jordan, the 2023 Cybercrime Law penalises online content “targeting the national security and community peace” or intended to “stir up sedition”. Political activist Kamil al-Zoubi, repeatedly arrested by the General Intelligence Directorate and the Public Security Directorate for his activism for over a decade, received two consecutive two-year prison sentences under the Cybercrime Law in early 2026 for peaceful social media posts critical of the authorities. In Mauritania, the 2021 Law on the protection of national symbols criminalises acts committed through digital platforms to harm “the authority of the State, its symbols, national security, civil peace [and] social cohesion”. In 2026, anti-slavery members of Parliament Mariem Dieng and Ghame Salem were prosecuted under this law and ultimately stripped of their civil and political rights, resulting in the loss of their parliamentary seats, over Facebook livestreams denouncing discrimination against the Haratine community and Ms Dieng’s arrest. The UAE’s 2023 Extremism Law, which defines “extremism” as any action motivated by ideas or principles “that would disrupt public order, or would express blasphemy, discriminate, or incite hate speech,” was notably used to charge Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi over a video posted on social media in December 2024 criticising the authorities of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
What makes this pattern particularly alarming is that, unlike ordinary criminal prosecution, counter-terrorism and security-related frameworks trigger a distinct and harsher set of consequences: significantly elevated penalties, in some cases amounting to decades in prison or the death penalty (see section 4); prosecution before specialised, military or exceptional courts that lack the guarantees of judicial independence and impartiality required under international law; severely restricted or denied access to legal counsel; prolonged incommunicado detention; and broad discretionary powers vested in security and intelligence agencies operating under executive authority with limited judicial oversight. In addition, the terrorism label carries a social and political stigma that can be used to delegitimise and isolate those targeted and their families. These frameworks also enable administrative measures, such as travel bans, terrorism listings and citizenship stripping, often imposed without criminal charge or judicial oversight.
The same frameworks are used against those who engage with the UN. MRG’s analysis of the UN Secretary-General’s annual reports on reprisals found that, of the 306 cases involving MENA states documented between 2010 and 2025, 190 (62%) were linked to counter-terrorism or security measures. In the 2025 report alone, 34 of the 38 MENA cases bore such a link. At the same time, several MENA states with problematic counter-terrorism-related human rights records hold influential positions in the UN counter-terrorism architecture. Saudi Arabia, whose USD 10 million founding contribution established the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) in 2011 and which contributed a further USD 100 million in 2014, has chaired the Centre’s Advisory Board ever since, and pledged an additional USD 6 million in October 2026. Algeria chaired the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee in 2024-2025, and the UAE in 2023, when it also co-sponsored the adoption a Security Council resolution containing broad references to fighting “extremism”.
Faced with an increasingly restrictive environment at home, growing numbers of human rights defenders, journalists and government critics from the MENA region have sought refuge abroad, where they have continued to speak out, particularly online. In response, states across the region have extended the reach of their repression beyond their borders, targeting critics abroad as well as relatives who remain in the country.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), transnational repression denotes “acts conducted or directed by a State, or its proxy, to deter, silence or punish dissent, criticism or human rights advocacy towards it, expressed from outside its territory.” Between 2018 and 2026, MRG documented the cases of 27 individuals and organisations targeted by such acts, involving 14 Arab League states, most frequently the UAE (11 cases) and Saudi Arabia (7 cases). These acts included politically motivated extradition proceedings, prosecutions in absentia, abductions and deportations, terrorism listings and administrative sanctions. In 17 cases, the individuals concerned faced extradition or deportation to a country where they risked torture, arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance.
Exiled critics are routinely prosecuted in absentia, designated as terrorists or stripped of their nationality for acts of free speech made abroad. Kuwaiti student Salman al-Khaldy, who sought asylum in the United Kingdom, received a series of prison sentences in absentia for publishing tweets critical of the Emir and for peacefully protesting in London, before being stripped of his nationality in 2024. Emirati dissidents living abroad, convicted in absentia in the “UAE94” and “UAE84” mass trials, have been placed on the UAE’s terrorism list. Their relatives in the country face prison terms of up to life for merely contacting them and some have been listed as terrorists themselves without having been convicted of any crime. In Algeria, a February 2026 law allows Algerians abroad to be stripped of their nationality, without conviction, for vaguely defined “hostile activities” or “propaganda” for a “terrorist or subversive” organisation “by any means”. MRG has warned that this law could target anyone abroad expressing support for peaceful opposition or human rights organisations, including online, given that the authorities have prosecuted online activism and designated peaceful opposition movements as terrorist.
An increasingly prominent form of transnational repression in the MENA is the politically motivated extradition of human rights defenders and peaceful dissidents, including in reprisal for acts of free speech. Since 2022, MRG has documented eight such cases between Arab League states, involving Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the UAE. These extraditions are facilitated by regional frameworks that UN human rights experts have criticised for falling short of complying with international human rights standards: the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation and the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism fail to adequately prohibit political extraditions, and make no reference to the principle of non-refoulement. The Arab Interior Ministers’ Council (AIMC), often misleadingly referred to as “Arab INTERPOL”, operates under this flawed legal framework to circulate arrest warrants among Arab League states without any independent review. The AIMC’s Basic Law also makes no reference to human rights standards and lacks a requirement for an individualised risk assessment before any extradition proceeds. In practice, individuals targeted by AIMC warrants have no means to access or contest the warrants issued against them, leaving them exposed to politically motivated extradition in breach of the principle of non-refoulement.
Documented cases illustrate how these mechanisms are abused to pursue critics across the region. Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi was extradited from Lebanon to the UAE in January 2025 over a video posted on X criticising the authorities of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and sentenced to ten years in prison before being pardoned and released in September 2026. In 2022, US-Egyptian commentator Sherif Osman was arrested in Dubai following Egypt’s request for his extradition, days after posting a YouTube video calling for peaceful protests. He was released after over a month in detention. Emirati dissident Khalaf al-Romaithi, a signatory of a 2011 petition calling for democratic reforms, was extradited from Jordan to the UAE in May 2023 on the basis of an AIMC warrant and remains forcibly disappeared.
INTERPOL’s systems are similarly misused to pursue critics across borders. Red notices are frequently abused by repressive states to target peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders, with MENA states acting as both requesting and requested countries. Those targeted are often unaware of a notice until they are arrested, and the review mechanism available to them, the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF), usually takes several months to decide and offers no provisional measures in urgent cases. Individuals can therefore remain detained for months, or be extradited, before any decision is reached. In July 2021, Uyghur activist Idris Hasan was arrested in Morocco on the basis of a red notice requested by China. Although INTERPOL later withdrew the notice, the Moroccan authorities detained him pending extradition until February 2025, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his detention arbitrary. Similarly, a red notice requested by Saudi Arabia for “forgery of seals” against Syrian human rights defender Mohammed al-Kayali, who had spoken out on social media against the Assad regime, led to his detention in Turkey for nearly ten months, despite UN experts warning of his risk of torture if extradited. INTERPOL eventually lifted the notice, and he was deported back to Syria in October 2025.
Transnational repression in the MENA has drawn sustained concern from UN human rights experts. Concerns over the AIMC in particular were raised in a 2023 communication by UN Special Procedures to the League of Arab States, which remains unanswered. The former Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights identified the AIMC as a key regional issue in her 2023 Global Study on the impact of counter-terrorism measures on civil society, and the current Special Rapporteur raised concerns about the AIMC in his reports to the General Assembly in 2024 and the Human Rights Council in 2025. The Committee against Torture likewise addressed extraditions carried out on the basis of AIMC requests in its 2024 review of Jordan. In a September 2026 joint statement endorsed by the Special Rapporteur, UN human rights experts called on regional policing organisations, including the AIMC, to “establish or strengthen mechanisms to prevent and respond to the misuse by States of police cooperation tools to commit acts of transnational repression”.
These concerns contrast with the continued cooperation between UN counter-terrorism bodies and the AIMC, which remains largely opaque. The UN Counter-Terrorism Centre signed a memorandum of understanding with the AIMC in 2018 and assisted in developing its Arab Regional Counter-Terrorism Strategy, adopted in 2022. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime renewed its own memorandum of understanding with the AIMC in 2023, and the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) regularly attends AIMC annual conferences. The Strategy was developed without civil society consultation, neither it nor these agreements have been made public, and no human rights impact assessment has been conducted or is planned. When MRG raised its concerns, UN counter-terrorism bodies deflected responsibility, cited the absence of a monitoring mandate, or stated that human rights fell outside their remit.
While international law restricts the death penalty to the “most serious crimes”, it has nonetheless been used in the MENA region to punish expression and peaceful dissent. In October 2025, a Tunisian court sentenced Saber Ben Chouchane to death for Facebook posts criticising the president and calling for a protest, before he was pardoned following an international outcry. In Mauritania, a 2018 amendment made the death penalty mandatory for apostasy and blasphemy, despite UN experts warning that it would “gravely violate international law”. This pattern is further illustrated through two contexts documented by MRG.
In Saudi Arabia, executions reached a record 356 in 2025, including 45 for broadly defined terrorism-related offences. In the absence of a codified penal code, judges enjoy wide discretion to impose death sentences, including in cases prosecuted under the Counter-Terrorism Law, whose vague definition of terrorism can capture peaceful expression. In 2023, the Specialised Criminal Court sentenced retired teacher Mohammed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi to death under the Counter-Terrorism Law, including for “describing the King or the Crown Prince in a way that undermines religion or justice”, over tweets criticising the royal family posted from accounts with fewer than ten followers. The sentence was commuted on appeal in 2024. Journalist Turki al-Jasser was also executed on terrorism charges in June 2025.
On 17 October 2026, the authorities executed Hassan Zaki al-Faraj, sentenced to death for acts committed as a minor, including taking part in protests and funeral processions, although the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had found his detention arbitrary. UN experts have since warned that Yusuf al-Manasif and Mohammad Labbad, whose detention the Working Group also found arbitrary, are at imminent risk of execution.
In Algeria, where a de facto moratorium on executions has been observed since 1993, the Penal Code amendments adopted in October 2026 following forest fires extend the death penalty to arson, even where no one is killed, with no possibility of mitigating circumstances. The bill also made it applicable to anyone who “incites” or “encourages” such acts “by any means”, including through “social media”. UN Special Procedures warned that these provisions exceed the “most serious crimes” threshold, and that such broad terms “could also cover lawful expressions, publications, communications”, resulting in restrictions incompatible with freedom of expression.
In light of the above, MRG respectfully encourages the Special Rapporteur to identify the securitisation of expression, transnational repression and the use of the death penalty to punish expression as strategic priorities for 2026-2029. We invite the Special Rapporteur to call on States and other relevant actors, including regional entities such as the League of Arab States and the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, INTERPOL and UN counter-terrorism entities, as applicable, to take the following measures:
- With regard to the securitisation of expression, cease abusing counter-terrorism, national security, cybercrime and “extremism” frameworks to target peaceful expression, online and offline; bring all relevant legislation in line with international human rights standards, including the principle of legality; and release all those detained for the peaceful exercise of their freedom of expression.
- With regard to transnational repression, cease targeting peaceful critics abroad and their relatives, including through politically motivated extradition requests, prosecutions in absentia, terrorism listings and citizenship stripping; uphold the principle of non-refoulement; establish independent mechanisms allowing individuals to access and challenge arrest warrants, notices and extradition requests issued against them; and ensure transparency and human rights due diligence in all police and counter-terrorism cooperation.
- With regard to the death penalty, ensure that it is under no circumstances imposed for the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression; pending abolition, restrict the use of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes” in line with international human rights law; and maintain existing moratoriums, repealing any provisions that expand its scope, with a view to its abolition.
