Joint Statement: US: Prioritize Rights During Saudi Leader’s Visit

(Washington, DC) – 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, 10 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: The groups are:.

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References:

• https://www.hrw.org/united-states
• https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/north-africa/saudi-arabia
• https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/visits/saudi-arabia
• https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/03/us-should-sanction-saudi-crown-prince
• https://www.gc4hr.org/state-execution-of-journalist-turki-al-jasser-after-7-years-of-imprisonment-is-another-blatant-disregard-of-justice/
• https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/11/saudi-arabia-executions-surge-in-2025
• https://www.menarights.org/en/articles/saudi-arabia-continues-threaten-lives-minors-disregarding-un-working-group-arbitrary
• https://alqst.org/en/post/ngos-condemn-escalating-use-of-the-death-penalty-in-saudi-arabia
• https://time.com/5228006/mohammed-bin-salman-interview-transcript-full/
• https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=29550
• https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/09/saudi-arabia-20-year-sentence-tweets
• https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/youssef-al-manasif
• https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/04/07/saudi-arabia-dozens-freed-arrests-continue
• https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/04/die-first-and-ill-pay-you-later/saudi-arabias-giga-projects-built-widespread
• https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/14/saudi-arabia-migrant-workers-electrocuted-decapitated-and-falling-death-workplaces
• https://cpj.org/data/people/mohamed-al-ghamdi-al-hazza/
• https://www.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2024/01/international_standards_on_freedom_of_expression_eng.pdf
• https://www.article19.org/resources/international-standards-regulation-broadcasting-media/