Saudi authorities have released dozens of people serving long prison terms for peacefully exercising their rights yet continue to imprison and arbitrarily detain many more, Human Rights Watch said today.
Between December 2024 and February 2025, Saudi authorities released at least 44 prisoners, relatives and rights organizations reported. They include Mohammed al-Qahtani, a 59-year-old rights activist; Salma al-Shehab, a doctoral student at Leeds University; and Asaad al-Ghamdi, brother of a well-known rights activist living in exile. The Saudi government should end its wholesale repression of freedom of association, expression, and belief.
"The release of dozens of prisoners is a positive development, but the Saudi government should free everyone else who has been arbitrarily detained," said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "This positive gesture is not a substitute for ending oppressive policies in the country."
Released prisoners continue to face restrictions, such as arbitrary travel bans and having to wear an ankle monitor. Those still being held for exercising their basic rights continue to face systematic violations of due process and fair trial rights, based on reports from family members and lawyers. Saudi authorities continue to detain and imprison individuals on the basis of freedom of expression, assembly, association, and belief. High profile detainees such as Salman al-Odah, a prominent cleric and religious scholar; Waleed Abu al-Khair, an award-winning Saudi human rights defender and lawyer; and Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, an aid worker, remain imprisoned.
There is little indication that these releases signal a fundamental policy shift, Human Rights Watch said. Many more people remain imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their rights.
Al-Qahtani, co-founder of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, was released on January 7. Saudi authorities convicted him on charges including "setting up an unlicensed organization" and "disseminating false information to foreign groups"on March 9, 2013, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison followed by a 10-year travel ban. Al-Qahtani was due to be released in 2022 but had been held beyond his expected release date and forcibly disappeared for two years and 10 days, ALQST, a Saudi human rights organization, reported.
Saudi authorities detained al-Shehab in 2021 and sentenced her to 34 years in prison based solely on her peaceful social media activity related to women's rights issues in the country. A Saudi court reduced her prison sentence to 27 years in 2023 and then to 4 years in September 2024, with that term ending in December 2024. Saudi authorities released al-Shehab in February 2025.
Saudi Arabia's notorious terrorism court, the Specialized Criminal Court, sentenced al-Ghamdi in May 2024 to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges for his peaceful social media activity. Relatives said he was released in February.
Saudi authorities have not issued a list of the released prisoners nor detailed their terms of release.
On March 2, Abdulaziz al-Howairini, the head of Saudi Arabia's Presidency of State Security, a security agency that has committed repeated rights violations, invited exiled dissidents to return to Saudi Arabia without consequences under an amnesty offer directed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Al-Howairini told state-owned media that "the kingdom welcomes the return of those who call themselves opposition abroad." However, al-Howairini extended the invitation "to those who were misled and manipulated for ulterior motives" rather than indicating a government policy shift toward tolerance of freedom of expression, assembly, association, and belief.
Many remain imprisoned in Saudi Arabia based on charges that are not recognizable crimes in international law. They include people like Sabri Shalabi, a psychiatrist falsely accused of terrorism, high-profile human rights defenders like Waleed Abu al-Khair and Manahel al-Otaibi, and the relatives of political dissidents like al-Ghamdi.
In some cases, Saudi authorities have doubled down and expanded violations against human rights defenders. Among those still held are al-Otaibi, a Saudi fitness instructor, who was forcibly disappeared on December 15. She was allowed to call her sister on March 16, a relative told Human Rights Watch. She had been arrested in Riyadh in November 2022 under Saudi's anti-cybercrime law for supporting women's rights on X, formerly Twitter, and posting photos of herself without an abaya, a long loose-fitting robe worn by Muslim women, on Snapchat, the relative said.
Asaad al-Ghamdi's brother, Mohammed al-Ghamdi, a retired teacher, was arrested in June 2022 and sentenced to death in July 2023 on terrorism charges based on his peaceful activity on X and YouTube; he remains in prison.
Asaad and Mohammed al-Ghamdi's brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, is a high-profile government critic and Islamic scholar living in exile in the United Kingdom. The Saudi government is known to retaliate against the family members of dissidents abroad to coerce them to return to Saudi Arabia.
Shalabi was originally sentenced in August 2022 to 20 years in prison, reduced in December 2022 to 10 years, on false terrorism charges. His health has deteriorated, and he has repeatedly been refused specialized medical treatment.
Saudi authorities continue to target and arbitrarily arrest perceived government critics or those with perceived connections with government critics.
Saudi authorities arrested Ahmed al-Doush, a British national and father of four, on August 31, 2024, at the airport in Riyadh as he was on his way back to the UK, a family member told Human Rights Watch. He was apparently arrested in relation to his social media activity. The UK consulate told al-Doush's family that he was interrogated about posts on X.
Al-Doush was held in incommunicado solitary detention for two weeks before he was allowed to call his brother-in-law in Saudi Arabia to tell him that he was in detention but not where or why, the family member said. He was only allowed a longer phone call to his wife two months later, on November 17.
Saudi authorities held al-Doush without charge for over five months, during which he was repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer. On January 27, the judge informed al-Doush of the charges against him during his first hearing. The hearing was scheduled without prior notice and al-Doush had no legal representation at the hearing, a family member said. He learned then that the charges were based on deleted social media activity on his X account that dates back six years and an alleged association with an unidentified individual in the UK who is critical of Saudi Arabia, his lawyer in the UK told Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch continues to document rampant abuses in Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system, including long periods of detention without charge or trial, denial of legal assistance, reliance on torture-tainted confessions as the sole basis for conviction, and other systematic violations of due process and fair trial rights.
Saudi Arabia lacks a formal penal code, and a forthcoming penal code should fully comply with international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch said. Saudi authorities use overbroad and vague provisions of the counterterrorism law to silence dissent and persecute religious minorities. The law violates due process and fair trial rights by granting authorities wide powers to arrest and detain people without judicial oversight.
"Saudi Arabia's allies and the international community should not be fooled by the recent releases," Shea said. "Saudi authorities need to genuinely commit to reform by addressing systematic abuses within the country's criminal justice system and to release all those imprisoned for the mere exercise of their rights."
