A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th century, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian governments in countries such as Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Francoist Spain, the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Turkey, Iran, China, and Turkmenistan. In the Western world, there are historical examples of people who have been considered and have considered themselves dissidents, such as the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In totalitarian countries, dissidents are often incarcerated or executed without explicit political accusations, or due to infringements of the very same laws they are opposing, or because they are supporting civil liberties such as freedom of speech.
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.
Emadeddin Baghi is an Iranian Journalist, human rights activist, prisoners' rights advocate, investigative journalist, theologian and writer. He is the founder and head of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners' Rights and the Society of Right to Life Guardians in Iran, and the author of twenty books, six of which have been banned in Iran. Baghi was imprisoned in connection with his writings on the Chain Murders of Iran, which occurred in Autumn 1998, and imprisoned again in late 2007 for another year on charges of "acting against national security." According to his family and lawyers, Baghi has been summoned to court 23 times since his release in 2003. He has also had his passport confiscated, his newspaper closed, and suspended prison sentences passed against his wife and daughter. Baghi was rearrested on 28 December 2009 on charges related to an interview with Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri. Baghi was released and then again rearrested on 5 December 2010.
Nasrin Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer in Iran. She has represented imprisoned Iranian opposition activists and politicians following the disputed June 2009 Iranian presidential elections and prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were minors. Her clients have included journalist Isa Saharkhiz, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Heshmat Tabarzadi. She has also represented women arrested for appearing in public without a hijab, which is a punishable offense in Iran. Nasrin Sotoudeh was the subject of Nasrin, a 2020 documentary filmed in secret in Iran about Sotoudeh's "ongoing battles for the rights of women, children and minorities." In 2021, she was named as of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. She was released on a medical furlough in July 2021.
Khaled al-Johani is a teacher of religious instruction in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was imprisoned, without charge or trial for nearly one year, at ʽUlaysha Prison for having publicly asked for freedoms and democracy in Saudi Arabia – an absolute monarchy – during the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests. His public statement was made to a BBC Arabic Television team on a street in Riyadh in the presence of security forces. On 22 February 2012 he was charged in a court for al-Qaeda suspects and a trial date set for April 2012. Al-Johani is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience as of February 2012.
Fadhila Mubarak is a Bahraini democracy activist. On 18 May 2011, she became the first female activist to be convicted for a role in the Bahraini uprising, and was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Ayatollah Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, commonly referred to as Sheikh Nimr, was a Shia sheikh from Al-Awamiyah in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. His arrest and execution were widely condemned by various governments and human rights organizations.
The Specialized Criminal Court is a non-Sharia court created in Saudi Arabia in 2008 that tries suspected terrorists and human rights activists. On 26 June 2011, the court started trials of 85 people suspected of being involved in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the 2003 Riyadh compound bombings and in September 2011 another 41 al-Qaeda suspects appeared in the court. In the same year, the court held trial sessions of human rights activists, including co-founder Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) and Mubarak Zu'air, a lawyer for long-term prisoners, and Khaled al-Johani, who spoke to BBC Arabic Television at a protest in Riyadh, thus becoming known as "the bravest man in Saudi Arabia". The court convicted 16 of the human rights activists to sentences of 5–30 years' imprisonment on 22 November 2011.
Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi is a co-founder of the Saudi Arabian human rights organisation Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) who has campaigned for prisoners' rights since 2007. He spent four months in prison without charge or trial in 2007 and was banned from foreign travel in 2009.
The following is a timeline of the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests since July 2012. The 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests are a series of ongoing protests taking place in Saudi Arabia, which began in January 2011, influenced by concurrent protests in the region.
Mohammad Fahad Muflih al-Qahtani is a human rights activist, economics professor and political prisoner currently jailed at Al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh. Prior to his arbitrary 2012 arrest, he co-founded and later led the Saudi Arabia human rights organisation Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association. Alkarama described al-Qahtani as "one of [the Saudi Arabian judiciary's] most eloquent and fervent critics". On 9 March 2013, al-Qahtani was sentenced to ten years in prison followed by a ten-year travel ban, ostensibly for "co-founding an unlicensed civil association". He has carried out several hunger strikes to protest Saudi prison conditions endured during his politically motivated incarceration. As of 2022, he remains jailed and has been intermittently kept in solitary confinement since 2018.
Judge Suliman Ibrahim al-Reshoudi is a Saudi Arabian human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist. He was imprisoned in the 1990s, and again from 2007 until his release on humanitarian grounds on 23 June 2011 at the age of 74–75. In November 2011, he was convicted of "breaking allegiance with the King" and possessing literature by Madawi al-Rasheed and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment followed by a 15-year travel ban. As of January 2012, his conviction was pending appeal at the Specialized Criminal Court.
The Bahrain Thirteen are thirteen Bahraini opposition leaders, rights activists, bloggers and Shia clerics arrested between 17 March and 9 April 2011 in connection with their role in the national uprising. In June 2011, they were tried by a special military court, the National Safety Court, and convicted of "setting up terror groups to topple the royal regime and change the constitution"; they received sentences ranging from two years to life in prison. A military appeal court upheld the sentences in September. The trial was "one of the most prominent" before the National Safety Court. A retrial in a civilian court was held in April 2012 but the accused were not released from prison. The sentences were upheld again on 4 September 2012. On 7 January 2013, the defendants lost their last chance of appeal when the Court of Cassation, Bahrain's top court upheld the sentences.
Dissidents have been detained as political prisoners in Saudi Arabia during the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s and earlier. 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.
Abdullah Hamid Ali al-Hamid (1950-2020) or Abu Bilal was a Saudi poet, Arabic professor, human rights activist and a co-founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA). He was imprisoned several times for calling for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia.
Saud Mukhtar al-Hashimi is a Saudi Arabian doctor.
Waleed Sami Abulkhair is a Saudi Arabian lawyer and human rights activist, and the head of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (MHRSA) organization. He is the first activist to be prosecuted by the Terrorism Law. He was arrested on 15 April 2014, and was sent to al-Ha'ir Prison while awaiting prosecution. On 6 July 2014, Abulkhair was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Specialized Criminal Court, and a travel ban for another 15 years, in addition to a fine of 200,000 riyals (US$53,333). On 12 January 2015, the case returned to the Court of Appeals, after which the judge requested increasing the previous sentence, because Abulkhair refused to apologize. Thus, the judgment was tightened to 15-year executed. In response, Abulkhair prayed for God's victory and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Specialized Criminal Court. Abulkhair is incarcerated in the Dhahban Central Prison in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a facility used to hold high-profile political prisoners, as well as members of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Saleh al-Ashwan is a member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, an organization that has advocated for the release of political prisoners and greater respect for human rights in Saudi Arabia and that was banned in March 2013. Saudi authorities arrested al-Ashwan in July 2012 for defending women's rights and held him without trial or access to lawyers for nearly four years, while confiscating his electronic devices. During his first two months of detention he was held incommunicado and Saudi activists allege that he was tortured, beaten, as well as stripped and suspended by his limbs from the ceiling of an interrogation room. In 2016 a Saudi court sentenced al-Ashwan to five years in prison and a five-year ban on travel abroad. He is currently held in al-Ha’ir prison south of Riyadh. Due to these abuses, he is considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Israa al-Ghomgham is a Saudi Arabian human rights advocate. She is especially known for her documentation of the 2017–18 Qatif unrest.
Feminism in Saudi Arabia dates back to the ancient, pre-Roman Nabataean Kingdom in which women were independent legal persons. Twenty-first century feminist movements in Saudi Arabia include the women to drive movement and the anti male-guardianship campaign. Madawi al-Rasheed argued in 2019 that the Saudi feminist movement was "the most organised and articulate civil society" in Saudi Arabia.
