Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy in which the king holds all legislative, executive, and judicial power. The concentration of authority in the monarchy has drawn international criticism for restrictions on political and civil liberties. Although the government has introduced social reforms in recent years, significant challenges remain regarding freedoms of expression, assembly, and political participation. The government is consistently ranked among the lowest-scoring countries in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.Worst of the Worst 2010. The World's Most Repressive Societies . freedomhouse.org In 2023, it was ranked by the Varieties of Democracy Institute as the world's most authoritarian regime.Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, Nazifa Alizada, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Allen Hicken, Garry Hindle, Nina Ilchenko, Joshua Krusell, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Juraj Medzihorsky, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Josefine Pernes, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Aksel Sundström, Eitan Tzelgov, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, Steven Wilson and Daniel Ziblatt. 2021. "V-Dem [Country–Year/Country–Date] Dataset v11.1" Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemds21 .
Saudi Arabia has for more than a decade retained the public relations firm Qorvis MSLGroup, a U.S. subsidiary of Publicis Groupe, to improve its international image. Human rights groups have accused the firm of helping the government whitewash its human rights record.
Background Saudi Arabia is an Islamic country which is based on Sharia. The 1992 Basic Law sets out the system of governance, rights of citizens, and powers and duties of the government, and it provides that the Quran and Sunnah (the traditions of Muhammad) serve as the country's constitution.
Political Freedom
The 1990s marked a slow period of political liberalization in the kingdom as the government created a written constitution, and the advisory Consultative Council, the latter being an appointed delegation of Saudi scholars and professionals who are allowed to advise the king. Some political dissidents were released from prison, after agreeing to disband their political parties. In 2005, adult male citizens were allowed to vote for some municipal seats, although plans for future elections, which may include adult women, have been put on hold indefinitely.
Political parties are banned, but some political dissidents were freed in the 1990s on the condition that they disband their political parties. Today, only the Green Party of Saudi Arabia remains, although it is an illegal organization. Trade unions are also banned, but the government has granted permission for Saudi citizens to form some private societies, which are allowed to do some humanitarian work within the kingdom.
Public demonstrations or any public act of dissent are forbidden. In April 2011, during the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests, the kingdom made it a crime to publish any criticism harming the reputation of government or religious leaders, or which harms the interests of the state.
According to Human Rights Watch annual report 2016, Saudi Arabia continued to prosecute pro-reform activists and dissidents. Saudi Arabia's terrorism court sentenced Waleed Abu al-Khair, prominent activist, to 15 years. He was convicted on charges concerning his peaceful criticism of the human rights situation in his country. In July, authorities arrested Zuhair Kutbi, an activist, because of his discussion to a peaceful reform in media. In September 2015, all the founders of the banned Saudi Civil Political Rights Association (ACPRA) were jailed.
Political prisoners
Protests and sit-ins calling for political prisoners to be released took place during the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests in many cities throughout Saudi Arabia, with security forces firing live bullets in the air on 19 August 2012 at a protest at al-Ha'ir Prison. , recent estimates of the number of political prisoners in Mabahith prisons range from an estimate of zero by the Ministry of Interior to 30,000 by the UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission and the BBC.
Allegedly, Khashoggi was not the only dissident on Saudi's list to be abducted. Another Saudi prince, Khaled bin Farhan al-Saud, living in exile in Germany, told The Independent that a similar kidnapping was planned against him by the Saudi authorities 10 days prior. "Over 30 times the Saudi authorities have told me to meet them in the Saudi embassy but I have refused every time. I know what can happen if I go into the embassy. Around 10 days before Jamal went missing they asked my family to bring me to Cairo to give me a cheque. I refused," said Saud. Five other royals, grandsons of King Abdul-Aziz, were detained, when they raised their voices about Khashoggi's disappearance.
In August 2018, a prominent Saudi cleric, Ahmed al-Amari, was detained by the Saudi authorities over the allegations of being associated with scholar and Saudi royal family critic Safar al-Hawali. Amari was held in solitary confinement since then. In January 2019, Amari died suffering a brain hemorrhage.
In November 2019, the Washington Post reported that about eight citizens of Saudi Arabia were detained within two weeks for making critical comments against the kingdom. Rights groups have condemned the act by calling it an escalation of an ongoing crackdown on dissent.
On 2 September 2020, the family of Saad al-Jabri revealed that Saudi Arabia had arrested Salem Almuzaini, the son-in-law of Saad al-Jabri, who accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of sending a hit squad to Canada to kill him.
On 28 December 2020, the Criminal Court in Riyadh sentenced a prominent Saudi women's rights activist to nearly two years in prison, drawing renewed attention to the kingdom's human rights abuses.
On 8 June 2021 Saudi court sentenced a Sudanese media personality and journalist, Ahmad Ali Abdelkader, 31, to four years in prison. This ruling against him came forth since his tweets and media interviews openly discussed and expressed support for Sudan's 2018-19 revolution, and criticized Saudi actions in Sudan and Yemen.
On 22 November 2021, Saudi authorities confirmed that they had detained Prince Salman (Ghazalan) Al Saud, and his father, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Muhammed, in an unofficial detention site without charges. The two men were arrested in January 2018 by a special Saudi security force, al-Saif al-Ajrab Brigade, as part of a broad purge of prominent royal family members, government officials, and influential business people, set up by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The father and son were disappeared in November 2020, and were held incommunicado until late October 2021. Abuses against the two men were documented, along with the conditions of their detention.
Capital punishment
The death penalty is permitted in Saudi Arabia for such crimes as rape, murder, apostasy, sedition, sorcery, armed robbery, adultery and drug trafficking. While some of these crimes, such as premeditated murder, carry fixed punishments under Sharia law, other crimes such as drug-related offenses, are considered tazir, with neither the crime nor the punishment defined in Islam. In 2005, there were 191 executions; in 2006, 38; in 2007, 153; and in 2008, 102. Executions are usually carried out by beheading, although firing squads are sometimes used; Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where beheading continues to be used as a method of execution.
A spokesman for the National Society for Human Rights, an organization which is funded by the Saudi monarchy, said that the number of executions is rising because crime rates are rising, that prisoners are treated humanely, and that the beheadings deter crime, saying, "Allah, our creator, knows best what's good for His people...Should we just think of and preserve the rights of the murderer and not think of the rights of others?"
Saudi Arabian police and immigration authorities routinely abuse people who are stopped or detained, especially workers from developing countries. Earlier in November 2013, the authorities received criticism for the way they have planned and handled the crackdown on illegal workers. Saudi authorities – in some cases with the help of citizens – rounded up many illegal workers and physically abused them.
On 23 April 2019, Saudi Arabia carried out mass executions of 37 imprisoned civilians who had been convicted mostly on the basis of confessions obtained under torture or written by the accused's torturers. Most of the executed belonged to the country's Shia minority.
In April 2020, the Saudi Supreme Court announced under a royal decree by King Salman that minors who commit crimes will no longer face the death sentence, but will be sentenced up to 10 years imprisonment in a juvenile detention facility.
In November 2021, sixteen British MPs and peers urged foreign secretary Liz Truss to intervene and stop Saudi Arabia from sentencing the Saudi scholar Hassan al-Maliki to death. Al-Maliki has been behind bars since 2017 on multiple charges, including "conducting interviews with western news outlets" and "owning books" that are unauthorized by the Saudi government. He was held incommunicado and in solitary confinement for three months. Labor MP Andy Slaughter said the treatment of the prominent academic was "totally incompatible with the reforms espoused by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman."
In November 2022, human rights organizations said Saudi Arabia resumed secret executions for drug offenses. In 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had vowed to "minimize" capital punishment. The regime had said that only those found guilty of a murder or of manslaughter will be sentenced to death. However, November 2022 reports revealed that the authorities executed 17 people in 10 days over non-violent drug charges. It included seven Saudis, four Syrians, three Pakistanis and three Jordanians. The executions, mainly by beheading with a sword, brought the total of executions for 2022 to at least 137. It exceeded the combined number of executions in 2020 and 2021. The UN was unsure how many more people were on a death row. However, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) said nearly 54 more people, including eight minors, were on death row.
In 2025 Saudi Arabia has broken its record for executions for the second year in a row. At least 347 people were executed that year. This is higher than the 345 executions recorded in 2024, according to Reprieve, a campaign group based in the UK that monitors executions in Saudi Arabia and represents people on death row.
Corporal punishment