Saudi’s digital hypocrisy

Saudi Arabia is set to host the United Nations’ Internet Governance Forum in Riyadh at the end of this year, from the 15th to the 19th of December. The United Nations’ division was created as a multistakeholder platform facilitating the discussion of public policy issues pertaining to the internet, in December, the program will be[…]

Briefing paper: Migrant rights and the Kafala system in the United Arab Emirates

Summary  The United Arab Emirates is the country with the highest proportion of international migrants in the world. Labour migration in the kingdom is governed by a restrictive and abusive system, named kafala, that causes numerous and well-documented abuses. This briefing paper contextualizes the kafala system in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the[…]

Profile in Persecution: Husain Ali Muhana

Updated: Husain Ali Muhana was a 21-year-old Bahraini student when Bahraini authorities arrested him without presenting an arrest warrant at his friend’s house on 14 December 2017. During his detention, he was subjected to torture, isolation, solitary confinement, enforced disappearance, denial of access to his lawyer during interrogation, unfair trials, and medical negligence. He is[…]

Transnational repression: a tool that extends authoritarian government’s capacity for repression

Perhaps not-so-well-known, transnational repression constitutes a threat to human rights that has been going on for decades. The phenomenon, which entails governments reaching beyond their borders to silence or deter dissent by committing human rights abuses against their nationals or former nationals, has been extensively documented by Human Rights Watch. The 2018 murder and dismemberment[…]

Saudi Arabia’s Continued Use of the Death Penalty on Minors: Unveiling Legal Loopholes and Human Rights Violations

In April 2024, the Court of Appeal in Saudi Arabia approved two death sentences for Yousif Al-Manasif and Ali Al-Mubaiouq, both Saudi nationals, who were accused of protest-related crimes allegedly committed as children. The two men were arrested between April 2017 and January 2018 for protesting against the government and ‘betraying the homeland’, a time[…]