Enforced disappearance still a routine practice in Saudi Arabia
In 2020, the UN’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances found a troubling pattern of short and long-term enforced disappearances in Saudi Arabia, often accompanied by allegations of torture. Saudi authorities have refused to provide a substantive response to these disturbing allegations.
We, in Together for Justice, confirm that dozens of political prisoners’ fate is still unknown after completing their prison sentences in Saudi jails. Therefore, they remain forcibly disappeared.
The two human rights activists Mohammed al-Qahtani and Essa al-Nukheifi were due for release from prison in late 2022, but they were instead forcibly disappeared.
Despite family appeals for their release, the authorities refused to free them or to reveal their fate or whereabouts.
Mohammed al-Qahtani completed a 10-year prison sentence on November 22, 2022, but has still not been released. He has been denied all contact with his family since October 24, 2022.
The last information released about him was issued in January 2023, in response to a UN communication, when the authorities said that al-Qahtani was detained in “Riyadh Correctional Facility” (Al-Ha’ir Prison).
Similarly, Essa al-Nukheifi has been forcibly disappeared since October 15, 2022, after he announced a hunger strike in protest over not being released from jail after completing his six-year prison sentence in September 2022.
Together for Justice calls on the international community to move forward to put an end to enforced disappearance, torture, and arbitrary detention and to clarify the fate of all those forcibly disappeared in the Saudi Kingdom. It also called for holding those responsible for these violations to legal accountability.
