General Update
On 19th February 2026, human rights campaigners including Fouz al-Otaibi, Lina al-Hathloul and Julia Legner, executive director of ALQST, met Newcastle's council leader to demand stronger action against "sportswashing" by Saudi Arabia.
The group called on the local authority to raise human rights concerns with Newcastle United chairman and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to closely monitor "any use of the city and region as a sportswashing vehicle" and to put a spotlight on individual cases.
Expression
On 17th February 2026, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) reported on the persecution of an influential Saudi business investor by the authorities and the courts and the retaliation he has experienced since he complained about his treatment on social media.
In June 2017, authorities detained leading businessmen at a luxury hotel and forced them to transfer their assets. Affected individuals were reportedly tortured and threatened with imprisonment and travel bans if they refused the transfer. In a bitter reminder of that incident, the Saudi investor Zaid Asbaih was targeted by his powerful business partner, Abdullah Nasser Al-Shathri, who has extensive personal, professional and family ties to the Royal Court and the legal system.
Following a breakdown in relations between the partners that led to Asbaih’s partner seizing his work documents, Asbaih sought legal redress in the courts, to no avail. According to GCHR, he received threats that he would “learn a lesson” if he kept seeking redress in the courts and administrative institutions.
After being unable to seek justice through the legal and administrative channels inside Saudi Arabia, Asbaih has left the country and sought protection in another country. Having lost faith in the Saudi legal system, he turned to social media after leaving Saudi Arabia to expose the extent of the problems he had been facing and the failure of the legal and administrative systems in Saudi Arabia to deal with his complaints. He is now facing a great risk of retribution by the Saudi authorities, similar to cases of other people who serve long imprisonment and other punishment for speaking online about their grievances in the absence of justice.
Association
In October 2025, a new 25-year jail sentence was issued against prominent human rights defender Mohammed Al-Bajadi, who has been in prison in Saudi Arabia for his human rights activism, including support for women’s rights and political reform. Al-Bajadi has been imprisoned several times since 2007 for his activism and for co-founding in 2009 the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), which aimed to advocate for political reform in the Kingdom, namely, for it to become a constitutional monarchy, and to end political persecution and torture in prisons.
His latest arrest took place on 24th May 2018 during a crackdown on women’s rights defenders. He was sentenced to ten years in prison with a suspension of five years. His sentence was due to expire in April 2023 but he was never released and has been kept in Buraydah Prison.
More than two years after the end of his sentence, while being denied his right to legal representation, he was subjected to a retrial and accordingly, on 27th October 2025, he was sentenced to a further 25 years in prison.
During his multiple detentions, Al-Bajadi has reportedly been subjected to several violations, including denial of contact with his family or a lawyer, torture and ill-treatment using electrocution, beatings, and solitary confinement for months.