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A damning new joint investigation from human rights organizations Amnesty International and Alqst has uncovered a pattern of arbitrary detention, unfair trial practices, and harsh long prison sentences handed down to international visitors to Saudi Arabia – including religious pilgrims and tourist travelers – purely for peaceful expression on social media platforms. The report, released this week, documents at least nine confirmed cases of foreign nationals targeted for detention between July 2022 and late 2024, most hailing from Middle Eastern nations and Global South countries. Rights groups warn the actual total of those detained is far higher, hidden by Saudi Arabia’s lack of judicial transparency and widespread fear among victims and their families of retaliation for speaking out.

Among the most high-profile cases detailed is that of Amr Abdelfattah, a French citizen and father of three who was taken into custody in June 2024 while completing the annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of Islam’s most sacred religious obligations. Abdelfattah spent 11 months in pre-trial detention before facing trial in May 2025 on two counts: charges related to peaceful online speech, where Saudi authorities claim he “insulted” the Saudi government and expressed support for individuals previously prosecuted by the state, and a minor visa discrepancy. Rights groups note that visa irregularities of this type almost always result in only a small fine or deportation, never imprisonment. According to Abdelfattah’s wife, the entire incident stemmed from her husband falling victim to a widespread common visa scam targeting pilgrims. He has now spent two full years behind bars, where his family says he has endured repeated physical abuse at the hands of prison guards. Alqst’s investigation confirmed credible reports that Abdelfattah has been beaten by correctional officers. Like other detained foreign nationals, he faces severe restrictions on communication with his family: any discussion of his treatment, trial conditions or legal situation results in an immediate cut-off of phone calls, and he is banned from speaking French during calls – he is only permitted to communicate in Arabic, allowing full monitoring by prison authorities. “Instead of being fined and deported, he has spent two years in detention, where he has endured repeated abuse and faces additional charges over peaceful expression,” Abdelfattah’s wife told Middle East Eye. “It’s time for this ordeal to end and for our family to be reunited.”

A second prominent case in the report involves Ahmed al-Doush, a British national who was working for Bank of America at the time of his arrest. Doush was taken into custody in August 2024 at Riyadh’s international airport as he prepared to board a flight back to the United Kingdom, after completing a family trip to Saudi Arabia with his then-pregnant wife and three young children. His detention stems from social media posts he published years before he even traveled to the kingdom. Notably, Doush had no prior history of political activism, prior reporting from Middle East Eye confirms. Since his arrest, he has been sentenced to five years in prison. His wife Amaher Nour was forced to give birth to the couple’s fourth child without any contact with her husband, just over a week before the report’s release. “Ahmed was taken from me and the children without warning or explanation. His absence has been deeply distressing to me and my children,” Nour said. “Our fourth child arrived only about a week ago and Ahmed wasn’t able to be there, I couldn’t even speak to him on the phone. My children and I just want him home as soon as possible, and seek the active support and help of the UK government to protect his rights.”

Doush’s family has faced the same lack of transparency and communication restrictions that mark other cases. Despite repeated formal requests, Saudi authorities have refused to share court documents with Doush’s legal team in the UK or his family. Doush has told his wife that he is only permitted to discuss superficial family matters during calls; any conversation about his detention conditions, health, legal proceedings or the charges against him will result in the call being terminated and additional punishment. Most recently, the report confirms, Doush was denied all contact with his family after he spoke to his children in English during a supervised call.

Other cases profiled in the investigation illustrate how widespread this targeting is across different types of visitors. Four of the nine documented detainees were in Saudi Arabia to complete the Hajj or Umrah pilgrimages – the two most important religious journeys in Islam – while the other five were on family tourist or personal visits. Fahd Ramadhan, a Dutch-Yemeni national, was detained arbitrarily in November 2023 and held for 18 months without ever being formally charged. Ramadhan believes his detention was triggered by social media posts expressing sympathy for a known critic of the Saudi royal family; interrogators presented him with a document listing four X (formerly Twitter) posts he had made and demanded he sign it. He was ultimately released in June 2025. One unnamed pilgrim was arrested in Mecca just hours after posting mild criticism of Saudi authorities on social media while performing Umrah; he was held without trial for 20 months before being released, even though he deleted the posts immediately after publishing them. Another visitor was detained and held for a full year before release after holding up a small sign during Umrah calling for the release of a political prisoner held in another country. In 2022, Lebanese national Haidar Slim was detained during Hajj after filming himself chanting a traditional Shia religious slogan; he was sentenced to five years in prison and a 10,000 Saudi riyal fine, only released in March 2025 after diplomatic intervention from his home government.

The report also highlights a common exploitative practice: many detainees who do not speak Arabic have been forced to sign legal documents they cannot understand, with no translation provided, to secure coerced confessions. Nadyeen Abdulaziz, a senior representative of Alqst, called on foreign governments to step up action to protect their citizens. “Foreign governments should use the means available to them to protect the rights of their citizens and residents while abroad, including providing consular assistance and monitoring trial proceedings,” Abdulaziz said. “Governments that profess to believe in universal human rights should advocate for the release of all those arbitrarily detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression.” Middle East Eye has reached out to the Saudi embassy in London requesting comment on the report’s findings, as of publication no response has been received.

In mid-January, a group of 50 young Afghan migrants, all aged 25 or younger, set out on a deadly journey toward Europe, facilitated by people smugglers who guided them across the Iranian border into Turkey’s eastern Van Province. What followed was a harrowing ordeal of abuse, exposure, and preventable tragedy that has left at least 20 dead and 11 survivors with permanent disabilities, according to testimony from 12 survivors who spoke exclusively to the BBC.

Temperatures in the mountainous border region had plummeted to -15°C as the group was detained almost immediately after entering Turkey by Turkish border guards. The survivors detail systematic abuse that began in detention: held for several nights in an unheated, open warehouse where snow fell directly on them, the migrants were given only one meager ration of dry bread and water per day and forced to carry out hard labor including clearing snow and hauling wood. Twenty-three-year-old Alwaldin, one of the survivors, says he was cut off from all contact with both his family and the smuggler who had promised him safe passage to the continent.

The violence escalated dramatically on January 25, the survivors recall. Guards lined the group up again, this time beating them with iron bars. After stripping them of all clothing except a single pair of trousers, binding their hands, and forcing them to crawl stomach-down up a snow-covered hill, multiple migrants suffered severe head wounds that left blood running down their bodies, according to Alwaldin. Some survivors could not move their hands at all after the beating, 21-year-old Shahsawar, one of the most severely injured survivors, told reporters.

The group was then split into eight-person parties and pushed through barbed wire onto the Iranian side of the border, stranded in the middle of a heavy snowstorm with near-zero visibility and no supplies or footwear. All their warm clothes, shoes, and socks had been confiscated by guards, leaving them exposed to the brutal cold. “The paths were covered in snow. And we didn’t know which direction to go or whether we would survive,” Shahsawar said.

The death toll mounted quickly in the frozen landscape. A 13-year-old boy named Danial was separated from the group within minutes, and his body was later recovered from the snow. Exhausted and unable to walk farther, Shahsawar took shelter behind a large boulder alongside 13-year-old Asim and another migrant named Ahmed, whose hands had already frozen solid. When Asim left to seek help at dawn, Ahmed died in Shahsawar’s arms, too frozen to even speak in his final hours.

Days later, Asim was found alive by search parties looking for stranded migrants. Too cold to speak when rescued, the teen pointed searchers toward the rock where Shahsawar remained trapped—a small, deliberate gesture that ultimately saved Shahsawar’s life. By the time the survivors were located, however, extreme frostbite had already caused irreversible damage to their extremities.

After being stranded, the group says Iranian authorities refused to provide them with urgent hospital care. It was not until four days after the Afghan embassy in Tehran announced it would take urgent action to locate and assist the stranded migrants that the Red Crescent Society transferred the survivors overland to Afghanistan’s Herat Province, and eventually to Kabul for advanced medical care. By that point, the frostbite on 11 survivors had turned tissue black and necrotic, making amputation unavoidable.

Shahsawar woke up in a Kabul operating room to discover all four of his limbs had been removed. “I raised my hands – they felt light. Both had been cut off,” he told the BBC. “My throat closed up and I couldn’t speak.” Other survivors like Alwaldin lost most of their toes to the same preventable tissue damage. Medical experts note that frostbite is fully treatable if caught early—for these migrants, weeks of delayed care turned a survivable exposure into a lifelong disability.

Regional human rights activists say this incident is far from an anomaly. Şafak Bozkurt, chair of the Van Bar Association Human Rights Centre Migration and Asylum Commission, told the BBC he has documented dozens of similar push-back operations in the border region, many resulting in hypothermia and death. Zakira Hikmat, a Turkey-based migration rights advocate, says that since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021, thousands of Afghans have attempted to cross this border to reach Europe, and increased Turkish border surveillance has pushed migrants onto far more dangerous, high-altitude routes that cross mountain passes prone to extreme winter weather. Mahmout Keçen, another Van-based migrant rights activist, has documented hundreds of cases of alleged abuse, push-backs, denial of asylum access, and forced returns of irregular migrants in the Iran-Turkey border region.

When contacted by the BBC for comment on the survivors’ allegations, Turkish authorities did not address the specific claims of abuse, beatings, or forced stranding. In a statement, the Turkish foreign ministry said that its border forces operate in full compliance with national and international law, and provide all detained undocumented migrants with necessary support including food, water, and medical care. The ministry added that the allegations are unfounded and unfairly undermine Turkey’s successful efforts to curb irregular migration, noting that Turkey’s policy has effectively halted almost all irregular migration flows toward the European Union. The statement added that Turkey, which hosts one of the world’s largest refugee and migrant populations, maintains a human-centered, sustainable migration management system aligned with international standards that balances security and humanitarian access. Iranian authorities have also been contacted for comment and have not yet issued a response.

All 12 survivors who spoke to the BBC have now been returned to Afghanistan, where they continue to recover from their injuries, many facing permanent disability from the amputations they suffered.