(Beirut, November 10, 2025) – The United States government, including Congress, should
address Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman’s expected visit to Washington on November 18, 2025, 11 human rights and press
freedom organizations said today.

The Trump administration is expected to welcome the crown prince on his first visit to the
United States since he approved the gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist and US
legal resident Jamal Khashoggi and oversaw an unprecedented rights crackdown in Saudi
Arabia. The Trump administration and Congress should press the crown prince to end his
government’s rights violations and release detained activists, writers, and journalists, and end
systematic repression of free expression. In October 2018, Saudi agents acting on bin
Salman’s orders murdered and dismembered Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul, with US intelligence agencies concluding that the crown prince personally approved
the operation to silence his critic.

Since bin Salman’s last visit to the United States in March 2018, Saudi authorities have
presided over one of the worst periods for human rights and freedom of expression in the
country’s modern history. Human rights organizations, including the undersigned, have
documented a surge in executions and the silencing of independent voices in recent years
without apparent due process, including the execution of Turki al-Jasser, a Saudi journalist
known for exposing corruption within the Saudi royal family. Others executed include two
young men for acts related to the exercise of their freedom of expression allegedly committed
while they were still children, Jalal al-Labbad and Abdullah al-Derazi. These executions raise
concerns that the Saudi government is using the death penalty to crush peaceful dissent.
According to data from the official Saudi Press Agency, Saudi authorities have executed at
least 300 people so far in 2025, including four women. They are on course to exceed the
record number of 345 executions in 2024, in contradiction of their own  commitments to limit
the use of the death penalty. Rampant due process violations and systemic abuses against
defendants in Saudi Arabia’s courts and criminal justice system make it highly unlikely that
any of those executed in recent years received a fair trial.

More than 160 foreign nationals have been executed, the majority for non-lethal drug
offences. United Nations legal experts contacted the Saudi authorities in December 2024,
urging them to stop the executions of 26 Egyptian men on death row. Most of these men have
since been executed.

Saudi authorities continue to harshly repress any dissent, including by arresting human rights
defenders, journalists, and political dissidents, and by handing down long sentences after
unfair trials on charges related to peaceful online expression. The death sentence of another
child defendant convicted of protest-related offences, Youssef al-Manasif, was recently
upheld by the court of appeal, alongside that of Jalal al-Labbad’s brother, Mohammed. A
third brother, Fadel al-Labbad, was executed in 2019.

Earlier in 2025, the authorities released dozens of people serving long prison terms for
peacefully exercising their rights. However Saudi authorities continue to imprison and
arbitrarily detain many more. Released prisoners continue to face restrictions, such as
arbitrary travel bans and having to wear an ankle monitor.

Rights groups continue to document rampant abuses in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system
including, long periods of detention without charge or trial, denial of legal assistance, reliance
on torture-tainted confessions as the sole basis for conviction, and other systematic violations
of due process and fair trial rights.

Migrant workers face widespread labor  abuses  across employment sectors and geographic
regions. Saudi authorities fail to protect them from abuse or to provide a remedy for
avoidable workplace-related accidents and preventable deaths, or to compensate their
families. Saudi authorities should investigate workplace safety incidents, and ensure timely
and adequate compensation for families, including through mandatory life insurance policies
and survivors’ benefits.

The Trump administration and US Congress should avoid emboldening Saudi repression by
remaining silent about these abuses. The administration should use its leverage, including the
desire of Saudi Arabia to enter into a more formal defense pact with the United States, to
press Saudi authorities to make concrete commitments on human rights and press freedom
during bin Salman’s visit, including the following:

Immediately releasing all peaceful dissidents, journalists, and activists named in the US.
State Department’s 2023 and 2024 Country Report on Human Rights Practices on Saudi
Arabia, including:

  • Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a humanitarian aid worker currently serving a 20-year
    prison sentence for peaceful satirical posts he published on X.
  • Manahel al-Otaibi, a fitness trainer and social media influencer arrested for using
    her online platform to call for women’s rights.
  • Sarah and Omar al-Jabri, the daughter and son of a former high ranked Saudi
    official, who were arrested to pressure their father to return to the country.
  • Mohammed Ahmed al-Hazza al-Ghamdi, a Saudi cartoonist arrested in 2018 in
    connection with his work as a cartoonist.
  • Salman al-Odah, one of Saudi Arabia’s best-known religious scholars and
    reformers who campaigned for political reform and human rights.
  • Waleed Abu al-Khair, a human rights defender serving a 15-year prison sentence
    as a result of his human rights activism.

Lifting arbitrary travel bans on human rights defenders, bloggers, and others, including
those imposed on US citizens, including:

  • Saad Almadi, a 75-year-old father and US citizen from Florida who has been
    trapped in Saudi Arabia for more than four years.
  • Mohammed al-Qahtani, a 60-year-old human rights defender and academic
    trapped in Saudi Arabia under a 10-year travel ban, preventing him from reuniting
    with his wife and five children—all of whom are US citizens— in the United
    States.
  • Loujain al-Hathloul, a 36-year-old women’s rights activist, who continues to be
    unlawfully prevented from leaving Saudi Arabia despite the official expiration of
    her travel ban in 2023.
  • Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was freed in 2022 after completing a 10-year
    sentence, yet cannot reunite with his family in Canada because of a 10-year travel
    ban.

Imposing a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the death penalty for all crimes.

  • Pending full abolition, amend Saudi legislation to remove death penalty
    provisions that breach international law, including its use for drug-related
    offenses, individuals accused of offenses committed as children, and vaguely
    defined “terrorist acts.”
  • Commute the sentences of all those on death row, including individuals accused of
    offenses committed as children and those convicted of non-lethal offenses.

Ensuring that all migrant worker deaths, regardless of perceived cause, time, and place
are properly investigated and that families of deceased workers are treated with dignity
and receive fair and timely compensation.

Fully dismantling the kafala (sponsorship) system in which employers control the status
of migrant workers, making the state the sponsor for migrant workers, and ensuring that
migrant workers’ entry, residence, and work visas are not tied to employers.

Reform repressive legislation targeting the media:

  • Repeal or significantly amend laws — including the Anti-Cyber Crime Law and
    the Counter-Terrorism Law — to ensure they do not criminalize peaceful criticism
    of government policies, practices, or officials, and that all forms of protected
    speech are upheld.
  • Ensure that the proposed media law fully complies with international standards
    protecting press freedom and journalism and does not impose undue restrictions
    on independent media or digital platforms.

The groups are:
1. ALQST for Human Rights
2. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
3. DAWN
4. Freedom House
5. Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
6. Human Rights Watch
7. MENA Rights Group
8. Middle East Democracy Center
9. Peace Action
10. PEN America
11. Reprieve