SAUDI ARABIA: Eight measures to end human rights crisis in Saudi Arabia
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and seven other human rights NGOs issued a joint appeal to Saudi Arabia to adopt eight comprehensive measures to end its grave violations of human rights, including the rights of journalists.
The appeal by RSF, Amnesty International, ALQST, European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and MENA Rights Group calls on Saudi Arabia, inter alia, to stop persecuting, jailing,torturing and imposing death sentences on journalists, political activists and human rights defenders, and to repeal laws that supposedly combat terrorism and cyber-crimes but serve in practice to crack down on dissent.
Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October triggered international outrage and drew attention to the disastrous press freedom situation in Saudi Arabia. Between 25 and 30 professional and non-professional journalists are currently detained in Saudi Arabia, which is ranked 169th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.
Read the original Arabic and English-language versions of the joint appeal below.
