Since April 2023, Saudi Arabia has forcibly disappeared Pakistani resident Hafeez Muhammad Omar. According to the information, Omar (8 August 1996) has been working as a private driver in the Saudi city of Arar since 2020. In December 2022, he returned to Pakistan on vacation, where he spent about 3 months, and in March 2023 he returned to Saudi Arabia to do his work.
On April 20, 2023, Omar's family received the last call from him to lose communication after that. Those close to him told the family that security forces had arrested him and that he had been at odds with his new sponsor.
Since his disappearance, the family has not received any information about him. The family tried to contact the Pakistani Foreign Ministry and the Pakistani embassy in Saudi Arabia, to no avail. They also tried to communicate with Arar city prison, but they were unable to do so.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights believes that what Hafez Omar was subjected to is an enforced disappearance. According to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons "enforced disappearance" is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.
ESOHR believes that the policy followed by Saudi Arabia raises serious concerns for the health and safety of Hafez Omar, as documentation confirms the use of enforced disappearance as a prelude to torture, extracting confessions and other violations.
ESOHR points out that the sponsorship system, which is still applied to the profession of driver practised by Omar, allows for widespread violations against foreign workers. The organization had monitored several cases in which Pakistani nationals were subjected to widespread violations, while statistics indicate that a large proportion of foreigners executed by Saudi Arabia hold Pakistani nationality.
ESOHR confirms that the failure to inform the family of the arrest and its reason and to deny the detainee access to it is a flagrant disregard for international laws, practised by Saudi Arabia on a large scale.