The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor presented her report to the Human Rights Council at the 46th session under the following title: “Final warning: death threats and killings of human rights defenders.”
The rapporteur indicated that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with 65 other countries, killed human rights defenders in the period from 2015 to 2019.
In the report, the rapporteur analyzed the issue of killing human rights defenders in the world and raised the alarm about the spread of killings in many parts of the world. The report noted that many governments has failed to fulfill their obligations to protect human rights defenders from attacks and acts which can lead to murder.
The rapporteur indicated that human rights defenders face a range of attacks from state and non-state actors, such as stigmatization, criminalization, physical assault, torture, arrest and even murder.
She noted that there are human rights defenders who are particularly targeted, including environmental human rights defenders or those who protest against illegal land appropriations and defend the rights of other people, including indigenous peoples.
The report mentioned that many human rights defenders are subjected to enforced disappearance, and that defenders who suffer from serious health problems die in prison despite the calls for their release.
The rapporteur affirmed in her report that the killing of any human rights defender is a tragedy for their family, a tragedy for building just societies, a serious assault on the civic space and a stigma printed on the forehead of the concerned government.
The report stated that there is multiplicity and diversity of threats against human rights defenders, including implicit, explicit, or direct threats, or through social media, phone calls or even text messages.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights affirms that the violations mentioned in the report of the special rapporteur are systematically practiced against human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia. It notes that the government is arresting human rights defenders, using enforced disappearances against them, and threatening them with arrest, torture, and murder.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr for his defense of human rights and his demand for social justice. In April 2020, the government killed Abdul Rahim Al-Huwaiti because he stood against the appropriation of land from his tribe and defended the rights of the indigenous people. The human rights defender Abdullah Al-Hamid also died in prison despite the calls by the special rapporteurs for his release due to his health condition.
The organization considers that the rapporteur’s report has sounded the alarm on the situation of human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia, who suffer various types of violations, up to murder.