Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia jails alleged satirist ‘identified in Twitter infiltration’

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Activist claims 2014 breach led to aid worker being sentenced to 20 years over parody account

A Saudi court’s decision to sentence an aid worker to 20 years in prison for allegedly using a satirical Twitter account to mock the Riyadh government has been linked to the infiltration of Twitter by Saudi agents in 2014, in a case that has drawn the attention of senior US officials.

Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a 37-year-old aid worker with the Red Crescent, was sentenced by Saudi Arabia’s specialised criminal court, and given an additional 20-year travel ban, following allegations that he used a popular parody account to mock the Saudi government.

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UK’s ‘headlong rush into abandoning human rights’ rebuked by Amnesty

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Covid failings, crackdown on protest, police discrimination and resumed arms trade with Saudi Arabia all listed in annual report

Amnesty International has published a stark rebuke of the UK government’s stance on human rights, saying that it is “speeding towards the cliff edge” in its policies on housing and immigration, and criticising its seeming determination to end the legal right for the public to challenge government decisions in court.

In its annual report on human rights around the world, Amnesty International says the UK’s increasingly hostile attitude towards upholding and preserving human rights legislation raises “serious concerns”.

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Mecca to accept only ‘immunised’ pilgrims from Ramadan

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Worshippers must be vaccinated against Covid or have recovered from the virus, say Saudis

From the start of Ramadan, only Muslims immunised against Covid-19 will be allowed to perform the umrah pilgrimage, Saudi authorities have said.

Unlike hajj, the shorter umrah pilgrimage is non-compulsory and can be performed at any time of year.

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Jordan’s former crown prince under house arrest over alleged coup

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Authorities also arrested two aides after raiding King Abdullah’s half-brother’s palace in capital Amman

Jordanian authorities raided the palace of the kingdom’s former crown prince on Saturday and arrested two senior aides after uncovering what intelligence officials believe was an attempted coup against the ruling monarch, King Abdullah.

The arrests focused on a network allegedly connected to Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, a half-brother of King Abdullah, who was removed from his post 16 years ago.

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Saudi Arabia has spent at least $1.5bn on ‘sportswashing’, report reveals

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Exclusive: analysis finds nation has spent big on high-profile global sporting events in a bid to bolster its reputation

Saudi Arabia has spent at least $1.5bn on high-profile international sporting events in a bid to bolster its reputation, a new report reveals.

The oil-rich nation has invested millions across the sporting world, the report by the human rights organisation Grant Liberty says, from chess championships to golf, tennis and $60m alone on the Saudi Cup, the world’s richest horse-racing event with prize money of $20m.

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Saudi accused of threat to Khashoggi UN investigator is human rights chief

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Awwad al-Awwad, former aide of crown prince, denies threatening to ‘take care of’ Agnès Callamard

The Saudi official who is alleged to have twice issued threats against the independent UN investigator Agnès Callamard is the head of the kingdom’s human rights commission, and formerly served as an aide to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Awwad al-Awwad is alleged by a person familiar with the matter to have twice threatened to “take care of” Callamard at a January 2020 meeting with senior human rights officials in Geneva.

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Top Saudi official issued death threat against UN’s Khashoggi investigator

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Senior official twice threatened to have Agnès Callamard ‘taken care of’ in meeting with UN colleagues in Geneva in January 2020

A senior Saudi official issued what was perceived to be a death threat against the independent United Nations investigator, Agnès Callamard, after her investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

In an interview with the Guardian, the outgoing special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings said that a UN colleague alerted her in January 2020 that a senior Saudi official had twice threatened in a meeting with other senior UN officials in Geneva that month to have Callamard “taken care of” if she was not reined in by the UN.

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Saudi Arabia proposes ceasefire to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to end war

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Moves aimed at ending six-year war include partial lifting of blockade on Sana’a airport and some sea ports

Saudi Arabia has offered Yemen’s Houthi rebels a nationwide ceasefire in a series of proposals aimed at ending the brutal six-year war in the country, including the partial lifting of the blockade on Sana’a international airport and some seaports.

Riyadh also said it would support a UN humanitarian corridor in the oil rich city of Marib, which has been under months of bombardment by the Houthis.

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The foreign royals and billionaire tax exiles collecting UK’s furlough millions

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Read the list of super-rich claimants, from Saudi princes to Dubai monarchs, tax exiles to the UK’s richest

Glympton Park is a sprawling, 2,000-acre estate featuring an 18th-century stately home, nestled in the verdant Oxfordshire countryside near Woodstock.

It was bought for £8m in 1992, by Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the senior Saudi royal whose past roles include ambassador to the US. He is said to have spent £42m on renovations, including a pheasant shoot and bullet-proof glass on the driveway to thwart would-be assassins.

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UK furlough scheme pays out millions to foreign states and tax exiles

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Qatari owners of Harrods and the Ritz claimed £3m alongside payouts to Saudi royals and British National party from Covid job support scheme

Billionaire tax exiles, the British National party, Saudi royals and oil-rich Gulf states have claimed millions of pounds in taxpayer-funded furlough money, the Guardian can disclose.

The revelations, based on analysis of government information, have sparked dismay among MPs at the use of a scheme designed to support struggling businesses and prevent mass unemployment, with one complaining of public money being scattered “like confetti”.

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Biden defends move not to punish Saudi crown prince over Khashoggi killing

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President claims sanction for Mohammed bin Salman would have been diplomatically unprecedented but overstates US-Saudi ties

Joe Biden has defended his decision to waive any punishment for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in the murder of a US-based journalist, claiming that acting against the Saudi royal would have been diplomatically unprecedented for the United States.

In an ABC News interview that aired on Wednesday, the US president discussed his administration’s decision to exempt Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from any penalties for the October 2018, killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Last month, the Biden administration released a declassified US intelligence report which concluded that the crown prince authorized the team of Saudi security and intelligence officials that killed Khashoggi.

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Moroccan court approves Australian citizen’s extradition to Saudi Arabia

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Lawyers for Osama al-Hasani have ‘credible concerns’ he was targeted for his political views but his wife says she is ‘still hoping for a miracle’

The wife of an Australian citizen who is to be extradited to Saudi Arabia says she “hopes a miracle will happen” after a Moroccan court approved his transfer.

International lawyers acting for Osama al-Hasani, 42, have asked United Nations special rapporteurs to raise his case with Moroccan authorities, citing “credible concerns” that he was being targeted by the Saudi Arabian government for his political opinions.

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‘Another abuse of power’ as Saudi court upholds Loujain al-Hathloul’s travel ban

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Women’s rights activist was released from prison in February but faces years of probation

A court in Saudi Arabia has denied an appeal by one of the kingdom’s most prominent political activists that would have allowed her to travel freely, her supporters said, weeks after her release from prison.

Relatives of Loujain al-Hathloul, whose 1,001-day detention drew fierce international criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record, had hoped that a five-year ban on travelling outside Saudi Arabia that the court imposed as a condition of her release on 10 February would be lifted. She also faces three years of probation, meaning she cannot return to activism or speak her mind without risking re-arrest, her family said.

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Rethink or reset? Joe Biden’s dilemma over Mohammed bin Salman

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US president has chosen to ‘recalibrate’ relations with Saudi Arabia, but some say a rupture is required

In late 2019, as Joe Biden stood on a debate stage and boldly vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah if he was elected president, a little-known former aide and Middle East expert was examining what exactly a “progressive” post-Trump stance towards the oil-rich kingdom might look like.

Daniel Benaim, a policy wonk who had worked for Biden as a speechwriter, and for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry before that, first travelled to Saudi Arabia and then began interviewing dozens of Democratic and progressive policy experts to come up with a blueprint.

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Turkish court refuses to admit US Khashoggi report as trial evidence

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Killed journalist’s fiancee petitioned for report implicating crown prince to be part of case against 26 Saudis

A Turkish court trying 26 Saudi nationals in absentia for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi has refused to admit as evidence a recent US intelligence report implicating the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, despite a petition from the journalist’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.

The declassified US report released last Friday said Washington believed that Prince Mohammed approved the operation to “capture or kill” Khashoggi.

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US decision not to punish crown prince puts us in grave danger, Saudi exiles say

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Dissidents decry lack of sanctions for Mohammed bin Salman over Khashoggi killing and warn of ‘permanent impunity’ for Saudi heir

Exiled dissidents who have been warned about threats against them by Saudi Arabia said they have been put in greater danger by the Biden administration’s decision to forgo direct sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – even as US intelligence agencies acknowledged that he was complicit in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

The activists, including some who have previously been warned that they were possibly at risk of being hurt by agents of the kingdom, said in interviews with the Guardian that they believed the 35-year-old crown prince would be emboldened after the White House declined to sanction him.

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Australian facing extradition from Morocco to Saudi Arabia arrested hours after meeting his baby, wife says

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Family suggests case of mistaken identity after Dr Osama AlHasani, 42, detained in Tangier

An Australian citizen facing potential extradition from Morocco to Saudi Arabia was detained just hours after meeting his newborn child, his wife says.

The wife of Dr Osama AlHasani – a dual Australian and Saudi citizen – has also raised fears about his welfare and says the family is confused about the precise nature of the accusations against him.

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US refuses to say whether crown prince one of 76 Saudis hit by visa ban

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State department ‘not in a position to detail the identity’ of those on list as US under heavy criticism for failure to sanction Saudi heir

The US state department has refused to say whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is one of the Saudi officials subject to US visa restrictions under the new “Khashoggi ban”.

The ban is named after the Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose murder and dismemberment in 2018 was approved by the crown prince, according to a US intelligence assessment declassified on Friday.

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War and famine could wipe out the next generation of Yemenis

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After years of violence half the population is going hungry and 400,000 under fives are at risk of dying from malnutrition

Eleven-year-old Sadia Ibrahim Mahmud was so weak she could not even move the blanket covering her tiny frame by herself.

“I want to get better, and I want to go to school,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. The autumn sunlight pouring into the malnutrition ward at a Sana’a hospital hurt her eyes; she turned her head on the pillow and tried to rest.

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Supporters of detained Saudi princess call for UK to help secure release

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Exclusive: letters to Dominic Raab and Lady Scotland say Princess Basmah requires urgent medical treatment

Supporters of a prominent Saudi Arabian princess detained with her daughter in Riyadh have appealed to the British government to help secure their release.

In two letters to both foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Commonwealth general secretary Patricia Scotland, the princess’s supporters urged them to intervene on behalf of Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and her daughter Souhoud Al Sharif, arrested in Jeddah two years ago.

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