Despite several call from the international community to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation, Saudi Arabia repeatedly demonstrates its complete intolerance toward citizens who speak out for political and human rights reform. The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny human rights defenders and others of their liberty, and deprive them their basic right to freedoms of expression, association and assembly.  Saudi Arabia has stepped up a sweeping crackdown on human rights activists and dissidents. All of the country’s prominent and independent human rights defenders have been imprisoned, threatened into silence or have fled the country. More and more have been sentenced to years in prison under the country’s 2014 counter-terror law. Authorities continue to systematically suppress or fail to protect the rights of their citizens, and in particular some two million Shia citizens. Restrictions on freedom of association, expression, and movement, as well as a pervasive lack of official accountability, remain to be serious concerns.

Case in point, in January, a Saudi court sentenced two prominent activists to long jail terms, accusing them of being in contact with international media and human rights organizations. On January 18, Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), the country’s terrorism tribunal, sentenced Nadhir al-Majed, 39, a prominent writer, to seven years in prison and a seven-year ban on travel abroad.

On January 10, the SCC re-sentenced Abdulaziz al-Shubaily, 31, a human rights activist, to eight years in prison, an eight-year travel ban, and an eight-year ban on using social media after his release. The charges against him included “incitement against public order,” “insulting the judiciary,” “describing the ruling Saudi state – unjustly and wrongly – as a police state,” include Waleed Abu al-Khairr, Mohammed al-Qahtanii, Abdullah al-Hamidd, Fadhil al-Manasiff, Sulaiman al-Rashoodii, Abdulkareem al-Khodrr, Fowzan al-Harbii, Saleh al-Ashwan, Abdulrahman al-Hamid, Zuhair Kutbii, and Alaa Brinjii are some of the innocents victims to this authoritarian regime. .

Although, international standards, including the Arab Charter on Human Rights, ratified by Saudi Arabia, require countries that retain the death penalty to use it only for the “most serious crimes,” such as killing and in exceptional circumstances, the Saudi authorities appear to have loosely used the penalty.

Under article 32 the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia has ratified, guarantees the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The United Nations General Assembly’s Declaration on the Rights of Human Rights Defenders states that everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to “impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The Saudi authorities appear to boldly ignore such international and regional human rights instruments and standards.

The Saudi officials often claim that the Saudi criminal justice system adheres to high standards. However, they always associate their commitments to human rights treaties with the rule of Sharia. The intermingling between human right treaties and the Rule of Sharia alludes to the mechanism upon which the Saudi authorities justify a wide range of violations.

An accused person typically does not have access to a lawyer, faces abuse when refusing to incriminate him or herself, and waits excessive periods of time before trial, where he or she is often unable to examine witnesses or evidence and present a legal defence, because of a presumption of guilt.

Saudi led military coalition is carrying out a devastating air bombardment campaign in Yemen that could amount to war crimes. The coalition airstrikes which have struck civilian infrastructure including health facilities, schools, factories, power facilities, bridges and roads is a clear violation of the Law of the War. More often than not such strikes have been disproportionate or indiscriminate and in some cases they appear to have directly target civilians and, or civilian objects.

Further the Saudi led coalition imposed blockade is having a "disproportionate impact" on civilians stopping life-saving medication being flown in, and preventing approximately more than 20,000 Yemenis accessing specialist medical treatment abroad.

Civilians in Yemen continue to suffer, absent any form of accountability and justice, while those responsible for the violations and abuses against them enjoy impunity. Such a manifestly, protractedly unjust situation must no longer be tolerated by the international community.

However despite this painful fact, the international community, in particular the relevant UN human rights bodies have refused to publicly criticize the country, thus giving such intolerable act a free pass time and again.

In light of these horrendous human rights violations in the region, we call up on the international community to urge the Saudi government to reaffirm their commitment to respect the rights of everyone, in particular the right to freedom of religion and to freedom of opinion and expression, which is enshrined in the fundamental international human rights instruments.

We urge in the strongest terms the UN human rights bodies, in particular the Human Rights Council, to condemn and put an end to government reprisal in the form of execution, arrest, and detention of freedom fighters and human rights defenders in the Middle East. Such a step will hail the wounds and deter further senseless violations of fundamental human rights.  

Most importantly we urge the international community, in particular the UN human Rights Council to establish an international, independent body to carry out comprehensive investigations in Yemen, and Saudi Arabia and duly bring the authors of these violations to justice.