News - Middle East: Ten international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, declared their solidarity with all victims of Saudi authorities’ deepening repression of political dissidents and human rights defenders.

“In recent years, Saudi authorities’ ongoing crackdown on dissenting voices has only increased in scope and scale,” the organizations confirmed in a joint statement.

The statement said that human rights activists, writers, academics, and intellectual reformers in Saudi Arabia are increasingly targeted and subjected to harassment, smear campaigns, surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearances. 

The ten organizations stressed the need for the Saudi authorities to immediately end any abusive practices. Accountability efforts are also critical to achieving justice for victims, they added.

They announced their support for attempts to hold the Saudi regime to justice in Belgium regarding the victims of the authorities’ repression, noting that the Belgian judiciary will take a final decision regarding holding Saudi Arabia accountable on January 24.

A number of families of victims of Saudi repression and human rights activists had filed a lawsuit in December 2021, under this principle, while the Belgian federal prosecutor, in June 2022, asked the Court of Appeal in Brussels to dismiss the case.

The court will make the final decision on whether or not to order an investigation into the case after a hearing on January 24.

The list of human rights organizations supporting the lawsuit to hold Saudi Arabia accountable included Amnesty International, Avaaz, Fairsquare, the Gulf Center for Human Rights, the Foundation for Human Rights, the International Center for Justice and Human Rights, the International Service for Human Rights, Mondial Against Torture, and Reprieve.

Saudi Arabia has toughened its crackdown on opponents and activists since MBS became the country's de facto leader in 2017.

As global calls to hold Saudi Arabia’s leaders accountable – notably over the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 – have become more muted, the authorities have reverted to their habitual pattern of repression.

In 2018, this repression extended to the country’s leading women’s rights advocates who have advocated ending the male guardianship system. 

On May 15, just weeks before the Saudi authorities lifted the ban on women driving on June 24, authorities began arrests of prominent women’s rights activists and accused several of them of grave crimes like treason that appear to be directly related to their activism.

Human rights groups expressed concern that governments such as the US Biden administration and the government of President Emmanuel Macron in France have given Saudi Arabia a blank check to repress human rights. Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom tweeted in condemnation of the ruling and criticized the lack of UK government action to hold a “friend and ally” accountable on human rights.

The US State Department spokesperson said that it is “studying” the case and commented in a news conference that “exercising the freedom of expression to advocate for rights of women should not be criminalized.” However, President Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia in July was seen by many as a victory for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a failure to secure a commitment to halt the clampdown on freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.

In late July, President Macron hosted Mohammed bin Salman for a meeting at the Elysée Palace in Paris, another indication of the end of Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic isolation for human rights violations.