Alert Saudi Arabia – Al Hazza

13 May 2025

As Trump visits Saudi Arabia, groups call for the kingdom to end repression of journalists

As global attention turns to U.S. President Donald Trump’s first international visit to Saudi Arabia on May 13, many journalists inside the kingdom will be unable to cover the event as they are behind bars, banned from writing, or silenced by fear of censorship.

We, the undersigned organizations, call on the Saudi authorities to release all detained journalists and writers, lift arbitrary travel bans, end legal and digital attacks, and uphold press freedom.

More than seven years since the gruesome assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Turkish consulate on October 2, 2018 — an operation U.S. intelligence concluded was approved by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — there has been no meaningful accountability for his murder. This has only emboldened Saudi authorities to escalate their repression of independent and critical journalists, cartoonists, and writers, and entrenched a climate of fear.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, with at least 10 behind bars on December 1, 2024, making it the 10^th worst jailer of journalists globally in CPJ’s latest annual prison census. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2025 World Press Freedom Index, Saudi Arabia ranks 162nd out of 180 countries and territories.

One of those behind bars is Mohammed Al Ghamdi, a Saudi cartoonist who drew under the pen name Al Hazza for the Qatar-based Lusail newspaper. On an undisclosed date in 2024, Al Ghamdi was sentenced to 23 years in prison on charges that his cartoons were sympathetic to Qatar and insulted the Saudi government. Al-Ghamdi was arrested in February 2018 and initially sentenced to six years in prison and a travel ban. Instead of being released after completing his sentence in 2024, authorities extended it by 16 years, with no option to appeal,  despite the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

We call on Saudi authorities to: 

1. Release prisoners of conscience: Immediately and unconditionally release all individuals, including journalists, detained or imprisoned solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. Ensure that all convictions and sentences are overturned, and any outstanding charges dropped.
2. End arbitrary travel bans: Cease the use of arbitrary travel bans as a tool to punish, intimidate, or silence activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and their families. Lift all travel bans imposed solely for peaceful activities and fully respect the right to freedom of movement, expression, peaceful assembly, and association.
3. Reform repressive legislation targeting the media: Repeal or significantly amend laws — including the Anti-Cyber Crime Law and the Counter-Terrorism Law — to ensure they do not criminalize peaceful criticism of government policies, practices, or officials, and that all forms of protected speech are upheld. Ensure that the proposed media law fully complies with international standards protecting press freedom and journalism and does not impose undue restrictions on independent media or digital platforms.
4. End digital repression: Refrain from using spyware or conducting online misinformation and disinformation campaigns targeting journalists, human rights defenders, and activists for their reporting or peaceful expression of opinions. Unblock the websites of independent media outlets and human rights organizations and ensure unrestricted access to these sites for individuals inside the kingdom, without fear of retaliation.

Read the full Statement on the website of Committee to Protect Journalists – published on 12 May 2025.

Signed:

• Access Now
• ALQST for Human Rights
• Artists at Risk Connection (ARC)
• Cartooning for Peace
• Cartoonists Rights
• Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
• DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now)
• Freedom Cartoonists
• Gulf Centre for Human Rights
• HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement
• Law and Democracy Support Foundation (LDSF)
• PEN America
• REDWORD for Human Rights & Freedom of Expression
• Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
• SANAD Human Rights Organisation
• SMEX (Social Media Exchange)

16 October 2024

Saudi cartoonist Mohamed Al Ghamdi (“Al Hazza”) sentenced to a total of 23 years in prison

Just as he was about to be released after serving a 6-year prison sentence for his cartoons, Mohamed Al Ghamdi, alias Al Hazza, has just been sentenced to a further 16 years in prison following the reopening of his trial in December 2023, with no possibility of appeal.

The cartoonist was arrested in February 2018 by the Saudi authorities, who accused him of producing “offensive drawings” for the Qatari media outlet Lusail and publishing messages “hostile” to the Saudi regime and “favourable” to Qatar on social media. These prosecutions took place at a time when Saudi Arabia had cut all ties with Qatar, ties that have since been re-established in 2021. Mohamed Al Ghamdi, who has always contested the charges against him and denounced the fabrication of false accusations, was sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment by a specialised criminal court set up to deal with terrorism-related cases.

Sanad, a London-based human rights organisation in Saudi Arabia, denounces his new sentence of a further 16 years in prison and points out that Mohamed Al Ghamdi, who is being held in Dhaban Central Prison in Jeddah, had already been the victim of enforced disappearance for several months, and that he also suffers ill-treatment in detention and a lack of access to healthcare despite significant health problems.

The organisation stresses that his case “illustrates a disturbing climate where no one is really safe; he has become a target simply because he is an artist, nothing else.” It calls for “urgent international action to protect artistic freedom and human rights in Saudi Arabia.”

Cartooning for Peace expresses its support for the urgent action initiated by the Sanad organisation and its solidarity with the cartoonist and his family, who are calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

At a time when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman – who is accused of being behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khasoggi in 2018 – has been invited to Brussels to take part in the first summit between the leaders of the European Union and the Arab countries of the Gulf, which is taking place today and in which French President Emmanuel Macron and President of the European commission Ursula Von der Leyen are notably taking part, Cartooning for Peace is calling for this condemnation not to be overlooked in the discussions.

Ranked 166/180 in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) world press freedom index, Saudi Arabia is a country where there is no free media. Saudi journalists are placed under close surveillance, even abroad. RSF reports that “since 2017, the number of journalists and bloggers behind bars has more than tripled” and that most are imprisoned arbitrarily. In 2024, the country had 24 journalists in detention.

– This Alert was updated on 19 May 2025 –