Saudi Authorities Must End Misuse of Administrative and Judicial Measures Against Released Human Rights Defenders Including Loujain al-Hathloul

Photo of a woman smiling — Prominent Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was sentenced in December 2020 to nearly six years in prison for several offenses tied to her peaceful activism, including under the country’s cybercrime law, which prohibits “producing something that harms public order, religious values, public morals, the sanctity of private life, or authoring, sending, or storing it via an information network.” She was released in February 2021 but is banned from travel and has a suspended sentence, which allows the authorities to return her to prison at any time for any perceived criminal activity. © Abaca Press/Alamy Stock Photo

We, the undersigned organizations, call on the Saudi authorities to immediately cease misusing administrative and judicial measures against human rights defenders (HRDs) released from prison, including women’s rights activists Loujain al-Hathloul and Maryam al-Otaibi, and to lift all arbitrary restrictions placed on them, including travel bans.

Loujain al-Hathloul is currently filing an appeal in response to the latest round of bureaucratic stalling in her quest to lift the unlawful travel ban imposed on her. Al-Hathloul, a woman human rights defender and leading voice for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, has faced arbitrary administrative restrictions since her release from prison in February 2021. Her criminal sentence included a travel ban of two years and 10 months to follow her release. Al-Hathloul’s travel ban was due to expire on November 12, 2023, yet since then she has remained unable to travel, without formal notification from the Saudi authorities of any new or ongoing ban, either criminal or administrative, that she can contest.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every person has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, and the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to it. The Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia has ratified, states even more explicitly that “citizens shall not be arbitrarily or illegally deprived from leaving any Arab country, including their own.”

Saudi Arabia’s own laws uphold this right. The Saudi Travel Document Law states that “[n]o person may be barred from travelling except by a judicial ruling or a decision issued by the Minister of Interior or the President of State Security, for specific reasons related to security and for a specific period of time… the person barred from travelling shall be notified within a period not exceeding one week from the date of issuance of said ruling or decision.”

In December 2023, al-Hathloul filed a judicial complaint against the Presidency of State Security, challenging her travel ban and calling for it to be lifted. However, when her complaint came before the Diwan al-Mazalem (Board of Grievances, an administrative court) nine months later, on September 10, 2024, the proceedings were perfunctory and failed to address her case. When the judge asked State Security for their response to al-Hathloul’s complaint, they simply said they had not received the case documents. At that point the judge declared himself incompetent to hear the complaint and closed the case for lack of jurisdiction. As of October 28, al-Hathloul is in the process of filing her response.

This episode highlights once more the arbitrary nature of legal procedures in Saudi Arabia, amounting to administrative harassment, that many HRDs face after release from prison. Often, as in al-Hathloul’s case, their family members are also banned from travelling, without any legal basis, in contravention of Article 38 of the Basic Law, and as an act of reprisal against the HRD. In a letter to the official Saudi Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in November 2023, diaspora activists called for an end to this arbitrary and unlawful practice.

In another case, activist Maryam al-Otaibi continues to face harassment and reprisals for her involvement in the #IAmMyOwnGuardian campaign against Saudi Arabia’s guardianship laws. In 2016, she refused her father’s demand to retract a complaint of domestic violence filed against her brothers, who had abused her in retaliation for her activism. Al-Otaibi was arrested on April 18, 2017, and charged with “filial disobedience” following her father’s complaint.

After her release on February 10, 2021, the Saudi authorities placed her under an arbitrary and open-ended travel ban. When more than 50 complaints to various Saudi institutions failed to resolve the issue, Maryam took to social media to express her grievances about the travel ban. As a result, the Riyadh District Court convicted her on June 22, 2022, of “preparation, storage, and transmission of material impinging on public order” under Article 6 of the Anti-Cybercrime Law of 2007. The court sentenced her to four months in prison, fined her SAR 100,000 (USD $26,660), confiscated her mobile phone, and closed her Twitter account. The court documents, verified by ALQST and partners, confirm that all the charges against her were related to her social media posts about her travel ban.

In a letter to the Saudi authorities in March 2024, a group of distinguished United Nations experts formally enquired about the legal grounds on which they had imposed travel bans on al-Hathloul and al-Otaibi, and expressed concern about this reported administrative harassment. The Saudi authorities’ response, rejecting the UN experts’ concerns, was totally unsatisfactory.

We, the undersigned organizations, therefore call on the Saudi authorities to immediately cease their misuse of judicial and administrative measures against human rights defenders, including the practice of imposing arbitrary travel bans, and to ensure that judicial complaints are addressed in accordance with international legal standards. The Saudi authorities must also allow independent monitors, including international organizations or UN human rights mandate holders, into the country to investigate such violations.

This ongoing campaign of harassment must end, and Saudi Arabia should fulfill its obligations to protect and respect the rights of all individuals, including those defending human rights within the country.

Signatures: