Following extensive advocacy efforts, 32 Democrat Senators and Members of Congress have written to US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging them to press immediately for the unconditional release of prisoners of conscience in Saudi Arabia.
Describing the kingdom as “a theocratic police state”, the lawmakers express profound concern over the authorities’ continuing crackdown on freedom of expression, and the fate of “numerous people unfairly tried and incarcerated” in Saudi Arabia. They cite by name several human rights defenders and women’s rights advocates, some of them family members of US citizens, who have been jailed for decades or placed under travel bans as a result of the authorities’ “zero-tolerance” policy for critical political thought and dissent.
Among those named in the letter, dated 30 July 2024, are academic and human rights defender Mohammed al-Qahtani, who has been forcibly disappeared since completing a 10-year prison sentence in November 2022; humanitarian worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, serving a 20-year prison sentence for satirical posts on social media, and also forcibly disappeared without any family contact since 2021; and reformist cleric Salman al-Odah, detained since September 2017 and whose trial, in which the Public Prosecutor has called for the death penalty on charges related to free speech, continues to drag on for unknown reasons.
Other emblematic cases highlighted in the letter include Salma al-Shehab and Nourah al-Qahtani, serving 27 and 45 years in prison for a range of putative offences under the Counter-Terrorism Law in connection with social media posts in support of women’s rights; human rights defender Waleed Abu al-Khair, serving 15 years in prison as a result of his peaceful human rights advocacy; and fitness instructor Manahel al-Otaibi, secretly sentenced to 11 years in prison because of her choice of clothing and support for women’s rights.
It is almost four years since Democrat Joe Biden became president of the United States vowing to challenge Saudi Arabia’s dire human rights record, in contrast to the outgoing Trump administration’s repeated moves to deflect criticism of the Saudi leadership. However, promises to “recalibrate” US-Saudi ties have apparently failed to materialise, particularly since the 2022 energy crisis caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Biden and other world leaders have allowed Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman to return with impunity to the world stage after a brief period in disgrace over his role in the 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. His diplomatic rehabilitation has gone hand in hand with a new wave of repression in Saudi Arabia.
