Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council should ensure that proposed labor protections for domestic workers adhere to international standards and recommend their prompt enactment, Human Rights Watch today. The Shura Council is planning to discuss the draft annex to the labor law next week and to make recommendations to the Saudi cabinet, which can enact the measure into law.

Abdullah al-Shammari was scheduled to be executed shortly after this month's Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Holiday of the Sacrifice, but King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided to grant him a reprieve and study his case.

Human Rights Watch today honored Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, a Saudi human rights lawyer, with the 2008 Human Rights Defenders Award in London.

World leaders should press King Abdullah to end systematic religious discrimination in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi government should immediately lift a travel ban on Saudi human rights lawyer Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, a winner of the 2008 Human Rights Defender award.

As UN member states begin three days of debate on the rights of the child, more than 300 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from 82 countries called on the UN General Assembly to take urgent action to end executions for crimes committed by children.

The Saudi government should free unlawfully detained political activists, including Professor Matrook al-Faleh, one of Saudi Arabia’s leading advocates of reform.