This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.(October 2019) |
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Formation | 2005 |
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Founded at | Saudi Arabia |
Purpose | Human rights protection (disputed) |
Headquarters | Saudi Arabia, Riyadh |
Chairwoman of the Board | Hala al-Tuwaijri |
Website | hrc.gov.sa |
The Human Right Commission (HRC; Arabic : هيئة حقوق الإنسان) is a Saudi government organization established on 12 September 2005 by the decision of the council of ministers. It claims to be independent of the Saudi government. The Commission states its aim as the protection and promotion of human rights in line with international standards.
The Commission's official findings have consistently supported statements made by the Saudi government. For instance, on March 2019, the Human Rights Commission defended the Saudi authorities' refusal to allow an international investigation into the 2 October 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. [1]
The Commission states that it seeks to promote, defend and protect human rights in Saudi Arabia. It states that it is an independent organization, ensuring that all government entities are accomplishing the laws and regulations of human rights. The Commission states that it has the right, without any prior permission, to visit prisons at any time to ensure the implementation of human rights. [2]
The European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights states that the Commission's activities aim to obscure and draw attention away from Saudi human rights violations. It criticized the Commission for making false and formulaic claims: for instance, they say it praised the Juveniles Law of March 2018, which prevented the execution of those who were minors at the time of their crime, as a success, while not mentioning that Saudi Arabia executed six underage people in April 2019. [3]
The Commission is governed by a board of directors chaired by the head of commission, and with a membership of full- and (non-voting [4] ) part-time members. [5] All members are appointed by the President of the Council of Ministers of Saudi Arabia, except for the Chairman and Vice-chairman, who are appointed by royal order. [4] All members of the council of ministers are also appointed, and dismissed, by royal order. [6]
In August 2019, Awwad Alawwad was appointed head of commission, by royal decree, with the rank of minister. [7] [ third-party source needed ] In 22 September 2022, Saudi Arabia has appointed the first woman, Hala al-Tuwaijri, as the new head of the Human Rights Commission with the rank of a minister. [8]
According to ALQST, the Human Rights Commission hired the US public relations firm Qorvis in 2020, for an annual sum of $684,000. [9]
In 2009-2010, the Commission indicated that it was unable to help Nazia Quazi, a dual Canadian and Indian citizen, to return to her home in Canada. She was being held against her will in Saudi Arabia by her father, whom she claims confiscated her identity documents and credit cards, threatened her with a knife, and attempted to forcibly marry her to someone she does not know. [10]
in 2016, the Commission publicly supported mass executions. A meeting between Canadian public officials and Commission members was criticized by human-rights advocates, for treating the Commission as a serious watchdog. [11]
In December 2018, the Commission visited Dhahban Central Prison and interviewed Loujain al-Hathloul and some of the other detainees of the 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists. [12] [13] [14] The visit was part of an investigation into allegations that torture was used against the women; Saud al-Qahtani, a close advisor to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, had allegedly been present at some of the torture sessions. Al Jazeera English judged it unlikely that the commission's investigation would lead to criminal charges against the torturers, and quoted a Saudi official who stated in reference to the commission's investigation, "I don't see how they will hold anyone accountable if they already publicly denied that the torture ever happened." [15]
An unidentified source who heard the testimony told the Wall Street Journal that at least eight of the 18 activists interviewed had been physically abused, and that Saud al-Qahtani had threatened to rape Loujain al-Hathloul, kill her, and throw her into the sewage. Aziza al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan, and Samar Badawi were also said to have been tortured. [15]
In March 2019, at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the head of the Saudi Human Rights Commission at the time, Bandar bin Mohammed al-Aiban, called the 2 October 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi an "unfortunate accident" and opposed international investigation of the assassination. Al-Aiban claimed that three hearings had taken place in an internal Saudi court case dealing with the case, with the suspects' lawyers present. He stated that none of the suspects had been tortured. He stated, "We have taken those measures required for us to solve this heinous crime" and that the reason for Saudi Arabia refusing an international investigation was that that would constitute foreign interference and "doubting the integrity of [the Saudi] judicial apparatus." [1]
The kafala system used for Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia gives sponsoring employees control over the worker's employment, allowing them to transfer the sponsorship without government intervention, including for profit. There are a large number of ads offering kalafa workers for sale or rent, and some apps have categories for such transactions. The Commission took steps to curb the publishing of these ads, and later met with some workers. They have said that they will prosecute anyone advertising the "sale, renting and sponsorship change of domestic workers in an illegal way." [16]
Human rights in Saudi Arabia are a topic of concern and controversy. Known for its executions of political protesters and opponents, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been accused of and denounced by various international organizations and governments for violating human rights within the country. An absolute monarchy under the House of Saud, the government is consistently ranked among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights and was in 2023 ranked as the world's most authoritarian regime.
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist, dissident, author, columnist for Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Eman al-Nafjan is a Saudi Arabian blogger and women's rights activist. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five other women's rights activists in what Human Rights Watch interpreted as an attempt to frighten her and the other activists, during the 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists.
Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world in which women were forbidden from driving motor vehicles. The Women to Drive Movement was a campaign by Saudi women, whom the government denies many rights to which men are entitled, for the right to drive motor vehicles on public roads. Dozens of women drove in Riyadh in 1990 and were arrested and had their passports confiscated. In 2007, Wajeha al-Huwaider and other women petitioned King Abdullah for the right to drive, and a film of al-Huwaider driving on International Women's Day 2008 attracted international media attention.
Dissidents have been detained as political prisoners in Saudi Arabia during the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Protests and sit-ins calling for political prisoners to be released took place during the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests in many cities throughout Saudi Arabia, with security forces firing live bullets in the air on 19 August 2012 at a protest at al-Ha'ir Prison. As of 2012, recent estimates of the number of political prisoners in Mabahith prisons range from a denial of any political prisoners at all by the Ministry of Interior, to 30,000 by the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission and the BBC.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, popularly known by his initials as MBS or MbS, is the heir apparent to the Saudi Arabian throne. He is currently Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. He is the seventh son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia and grandson of the nation's founder, King Abdulaziz.
Loujain al-Hathloul is a Saudi women's rights activist, a social media figure, and political prisoner. She has been arrested on several occasions for defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. In May 2018, she and several prominent women's rights activists were kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and deported to Saudi Arabia where they were charged with "attempting to destabilise the kingdom." Her ex-husband, Saudi stand-up comedian Fahad al-Butairi, had also been forcibly returned from Jordan to the Kingdom and was under arrest.
Yahya Assiri is a Saudi Arabian human rights activist and former member of the Royal Saudi Air Force.
Awwad S. Alawwad is a Saudi politician who has served as minister of culture and information of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since April 2017, and as the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Germany from October 2015 to April 2017. Alawwad is the former head of the Saudi Human Rights Commission appointed by royal decree with the rank of minister in August 2019. In September 2022, Alawwad has been relieved from his post as head of Human Rights Commission and has been appointed as advisor at the Saudi Royal Court.
Aziza al-Yousef is a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist and academic. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five others.
The anti male-guardianship campaign is an ongoing campaign by Saudi women against the requirement to obtain permission from their male guardian for activities such as getting a job, travelling internationally or getting married. Wajeha al-Huwaider deliberately tried to travel internationally without male guardianship permission in 2009 and encouraged other women to do likewise. Women activists wrote a letter to the Saudi Minister of Labor and brought media attention to the issue in 2011. A 14,000-signature petition was given to royal authorities by Aziza al-Yousef in 2016 following a Human Rights Watch report on male guardianship. A crackdown against the activists took place in mid-May 2018, with 13 arrests as of 22 May 2018. Several of the women remained in prison as of December 2018. Some of the women activists were tortured, including supervision by Saud al-Qahtani, a close advisor of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
ALQST or Al Qst is a human rights organisation that documents and promotes human rights in Saudi Arabia, with a team in Saudi Arabia that researches cases and a team in London that publishes reports and news.
On 2 October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist, was killed by agents of the Saudi government at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Khashoggi was ambushed and strangled by a 15-member squad of Saudi operatives. His body was dismembered and disposed of in some way that was never publicly revealed. The consulate had been secretly bugged by the Turkish government and Khashoggi's final moments were captured in audio recordings, transcripts of which were subsequently made public.
Saud bin Abdullah al-Qahtani is a Saudi Arabian consultant and former royal court advisor. Prior to his dismissal in late 2018, he worked as an advisor to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Dhahban Central Prison, also known as Dhahban Prison, is a maximum security prison facility located near Dahaban, Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia. It was built in 2015 as part of a renovation of the Jeddah Prisons infrastructure, at a cost of SR400 million. It has capacity for 7,500 inmates. When it opened, 3,000 inmates were transferred in from Braiman Prison. In 2015, the regional director for prisons Mani Al-Otaibi said it was the most advanced prison in Saudi Arabia, with state of the art surveillance technologies.
Nassima al-Sadah is a Shia human rights writer and activist from the "restive Shi'ite-majority" eastern province Qatif, Saudi Arabia. She has "campaigned for civil and political rights, women's rights and the rights of the Shi'a minority" in the eastern province Qatif, Saudi Arabia for many years. She ran as a candidate in the 2015 Saudi Arabian municipal elections but was disqualified. Sadah and another prominent activist, Samar Badawi, were arrested on July 30, 2018, by Saudi authorities in a broader "government crackdown" on "activists, clerics and journalists."
The 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists consisted of waves of arrests of women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia involved in the women to drive movement and the Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign and of their supporters during 2018 and 2019. The crackdown was described in June 2018 by a United Nations special rapporteur as taking place "on a wide scale across" Saudi Arabia; the special rapporteur called for the "urgent release" of the detainees. Six of the women arrestees were tortured, some in the presence of Crown Prince advisor Saud al-Qahtani.
Amal Bint Yahya al-Moallimi is the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Norway and Canada. She is the second Saudi woman ambassador and is the sister of Ambassador Abdallah Yahya al-Mouallimi, the long-standing Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations.
Salma al-Shehab is a Saudi Arabian student and prisoner of conscience who was sentenced to 27 years in prison by the Specialized Criminal Court in what has been cited as the longest prison sentence ever given to a human rights activist in Saudi Arabia. While al-Shehab's initial six-year sentence received relatively little press, her resentencing in August 2022 received international attention and led to criticism of the Saudi Arabian government.
Lina al-Hathloul is a Saudi human rights activist and the sister of Loujain al-Hathloul, the women's rights activist and political prisoner.