Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Record: Progress, Persecution, and the Paradox of Vision 2030

Saudi Arabia’s human rights record presents one of the most striking paradoxes in contemporary governance. Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s leadership since 2017, the kingdom has enacted the most sweeping social liberalization in its history—lifting the ban on women driving, dismantling elements of the male guardianship system, opening cinemas and concert venues, and integrating women into the workforce at unprecedented rates. Simultaneously, human rights organizations have documented an intensification of political repression, with the detention of activists, the silencing of dissent, and the chilling effect of extrajudicial actions reaching levels that many observers describe as worse than any period in modern Saudi history. This is the paradox that defines Saudi Arabia’s approach to Expo 2030: a kingdom that has genuinely transformed the daily lives of its citizens while systematically crushing any voice that questions the terms of that transformation.

Women’s Rights: The Most Visible Transformation

The reforms affecting Saudi women represent the most tangible and internationally recognized dimension of Saudi Arabia’s social evolution under Vision 2030. The changes have been real, measurable, and in many cases, historically unprecedented for the kingdom.

On June 24, 2018, Saudi Arabia officially lifted the ban on women driving—a prohibition that had been in place for decades and had become the single most internationally recognized symbol of the kingdom’s restrictive social code. The ban had no basis in Saudi law per se; it was enforced through a combination of traffic regulations, religious edicts, and the male guardianship system that required a male relative’s permission for women to engage in most public activities. Its removal was announced by royal decree in September 2017 and implemented the following June, with the government issuing driving licenses to women for the first time.

The guardianship reforms that followed in 2019 were arguably more significant in their practical impact on women’s daily lives. Women aged 21 and older gained the right to apply for passports independently, without requiring permission from a male guardian. Women could travel without a guardian’s consent. Access to healthcare, education, and government services was decoupled from the guardianship requirement. Women gained the ability to register births, marriages, and divorces and to be recognized as heads of household. These changes dismantled formal legal barriers that had defined women’s subordinate status for generations.

The workforce participation numbers tell a striking story of transformation. In 2016, when Vision 2030 was launched, women’s labor force participation stood at approximately 19 percent. The original target was 30 percent by 2030. By Q1 2025, the rate had reached 36.3 percent—exceeding the original target by more than six percentage points and prompting the government to revise the target upward to 40 percent. Female unemployment dropped from 31.7 percent in 2018 to 10.5 percent in Q1 2025. S&P Global has projected that if this trajectory continues, the increased female participation could add $39 billion—approximately 3.5 percent of GDP—to the Saudi economy by 2032.

Women now constitute over 40 percent of STEM students in Saudi universities as of 2025. Women have been appointed to positions previously closed to them, including roles in the judiciary, the Shura Council (the kingdom’s consultative assembly), and the diplomatic corps. The entertainment sector—cinemas, concert venues, sports stadiums—is now mixed-gender, a transformation that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Yet the limitations and contradictions are substantial. Saudi Arabia ranked 132nd out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report for 2025—an improvement from previous years but still placing the kingdom among the world’s most gender-unequal societies. The guardianship system, while legally reformed, remains deeply embedded in social customs and institutional practices. Women still face restrictions in matters of marriage, divorce, and child custody that are governed by Sharia-based personal status laws. And perhaps most pointedly, many of the women’s rights activists who campaigned for the very reforms that the government ultimately adopted remain imprisoned or subject to travel bans.

Loujain al-Hathloul, who became internationally known for defying the driving ban by posting videos of herself behind the wheel, was arrested in May 2018—weeks before the driving ban was officially lifted. She was detained for nearly three years, during which she alleged she was subjected to torture, waterboarding, and sexual assault. She was released in February 2021 under strict conditions, including a travel ban that remained in effect years after her release. Her case exemplifies the paradox: the government adopted the reform she advocated while punishing her for having advocated it.

Political Repression: The Other Side of Reform

If the social liberalization represents one dimension of MBS’s governance, the systematic suppression of political dissent represents the other. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House, and other monitoring organizations have consistently documented a pattern of escalating repression since 2017.

Freedom House’s 2024 assessment gave Saudi Arabia a score of 8 out of 100 on its Freedom in the World index, categorizing the kingdom as “Not Free.” This placed Saudi Arabia among the most politically repressive countries on earth, alongside North Korea, Syria, and Eritrea. The assessment cited the absence of democratic institutions, the lack of an independent judiciary, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, and the systematic targeting of activists, journalists, and critics.

The cases of Salma al-Shehab and Nourah al-Qahtani illustrate the severity of the kingdom’s approach to dissent. Al-Shehab, a PhD student at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, was sentenced to 34 years in prison for peaceful social media activity—specifically, for tweets and retweets supporting women’s rights. The sentence was imposed after she returned to Saudi Arabia for a vacation in 2022. Al-Qahtani received a 45-year sentence for similar social media activity. These sentences, among the longest ever imposed for nonviolent expression in Saudi Arabia, were widely condemned by international human rights organizations and foreign governments.

The broader pattern includes the detention of religious scholars, intellectuals, bloggers, and human rights defenders. The Saudi authorities have used counterterrorism legislation and cybercrime laws to prosecute individuals for expressing opinions online. The Specialized Criminal Court, originally established to try terrorism cases, has been extensively used to prosecute speech-related offenses. Family members of activists and dissidents living abroad have been targeted, creating a system of transnational repression designed to silence criticism wherever it originates.

The kingdom’s approach to LGBTQ+ rights remains among the most restrictive in the world. Homosexuality is criminalized, and punishments can include imprisonment, corporal punishment, and potentially capital punishment under the kingdom’s interpretation of Sharia law. There is no legal recognition of same-sex relationships, and public discussion of LGBTQ+ issues is effectively prohibited.

The Khashoggi Affair: A Defining Moment

The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2, 2018, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, remains the single most damaging event to Saudi Arabia’s international reputation under MBS’s leadership. Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi journalist who had become a columnist for The Washington Post and a critic of MBS’s consolidation of power, entered the consulate to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage. He never emerged.

Turkish intelligence services subsequently released evidence that Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside the consulate by a team of Saudi operatives, several of whom were identified as members of MBS’s personal security detail. The Saudi government initially denied any involvement, then claimed Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, then acknowledged that he had been killed in a “rogue operation” that had not been authorized by senior leadership. A U.S. intelligence assessment, declassified in February 2021, concluded that MBS had “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

A Saudi court convicted eight individuals in connection with the killing in 2019, with five initially sentenced to death—sentences later commuted to 20-year prison terms. The trial was conducted in secret, and the convicted individuals were not publicly identified. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, described the Saudi investigation and trial as insufficient and not meeting international standards of transparency or accountability.

The Khashoggi affair had immediate diplomatic consequences, with several countries temporarily suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia and major international business figures withdrawing from the Future Investment Initiative conference. However, the long-term diplomatic impact has been limited. The United States, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, maintained the strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom’s hosting of Expo 2030 was approved by the Bureau International des Expositions in November 2023, and its bid to host the FIFA World Cup 2034 was accepted in 2024.

Labor Rights and Worker Conditions

The labor dimension of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has received increased scrutiny as the scale of Vision 2030 construction projects has grown. Saudi Arabia’s construction and infrastructure sector relies heavily on migrant workers—primarily from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Africa—who constitute the majority of the kingdom’s private sector labor force.

A 2024 investigation reported that over 21,000 workers had allegedly died on Vision 2030-related construction projects between 2017 and 2024. This figure, which Saudi authorities have not confirmed, encompasses deaths from all causes including workplace accidents, heat exposure, cardiac events, and other health conditions. The extreme heat conditions in Saudi Arabia—where summer temperatures routinely exceed 50 degrees Celsius—pose particular risks to construction workers, and the adequacy of heat exposure protections has been a persistent concern.

The kafala (sponsorship) system, which historically tied migrant workers’ legal status to their employer, has been partially reformed. Saudi Arabia introduced the Labor Reform Initiative in 2021, which aimed to improve worker mobility by allowing workers to change employers without their current employer’s consent—a change that, on paper, addressed one of the most exploitative aspects of the kafala system. However, implementation has been inconsistent, and workers continue to report difficulties exercising their right to mobility in practice.

Wage theft—the nonpayment or delayed payment of wages—remains a significant problem, particularly in the construction sector. Workers have reported going months without pay, and the enforcement mechanisms available to foreign workers seeking to recover unpaid wages are limited. The Saudi government has implemented the Wage Protection System, which requires employers to pay salaries through bank transfers to create a verifiable record, but compliance remains incomplete.

Housing conditions for migrant workers have been documented as substandard in numerous cases, with overcrowded accommodations, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient ventilation. The confiscation of workers’ passports by employers, though technically illegal, continues to be reported. These conditions have drawn comparisons to the labor rights concerns surrounding Qatar’s preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, with human rights organizations calling for Saudi Arabia to implement comprehensive labor reforms ahead of Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup.

Capital Punishment and the Justice System

Saudi Arabia maintains one of the highest rates of capital punishment in the world. The kingdom executed 196 individuals in 2022, the highest number in the country’s recorded history. Executions have been carried out for offenses including murder, drug trafficking, terrorism, and, in some cases, nonviolent offenses. The use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses has been particularly controversial, as many of those executed have been foreign nationals from developing countries.

The Saudi justice system operates under Sharia law as interpreted by the kingdom’s religious establishment, supplemented by royal decrees and regulations. There is no written penal code in the comprehensive Western sense—judicial discretion plays a significant role in sentencing, leading to what human rights organizations describe as arbitrary and inconsistent application of the law. Defendants’ access to legal representation, particularly in the early stages of detention, has been criticized as inadequate. Trials before the Specialized Criminal Court are often conducted in secret, and due process protections fall short of international standards.

The kingdom has made some reforms to the justice system under Vision 2030, including the codification of certain legal provisions and the establishment of new commercial courts designed to improve the business environment. In 2021, Saudi Arabia announced the abolition of flogging as a form of punishment, replacing it with prison terms or fines. However, the overall trajectory of judicial reform has been slow relative to the pace of economic and social transformation.

Transnational Repression: Extending Control Beyond Borders

One of the most concerning dimensions of Saudi Arabia’s human rights practices has been the documented pattern of transnational repression—the extension of surveillance, intimidation, and physical threats to Saudi citizens and critics living abroad. The Khashoggi murder was the most extreme manifestation of this pattern, but it exists on a spectrum that includes digital surveillance, the targeting of family members, and the use of diplomatic and legal mechanisms to silence dissent from abroad.

Saudi Arabia has been identified as a customer of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, which has been used to monitor the communications of activists, journalists, and political figures. Investigations by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto have documented the use of Pegasus to target Saudi dissidents abroad, including individuals associated with Khashoggi. The surveillance capabilities enabled by such technology allow the Saudi state to monitor private communications, track movements, and gather compromising information on critics regardless of their physical location.

Family members of exiled activists and dissidents have been subjected to travel bans, detention, and prosecution in apparent retaliation for their relatives’ activities abroad. This strategy creates a powerful deterrent effect: Saudi citizens abroad know that their activism or criticism may result in consequences not for themselves but for family members who remain in the kingdom. Human rights organizations have documented numerous cases in which family members have been detained, interrogated, or subjected to travel bans following public criticism by their relatives living overseas.

The Expo 2030 Context: Sportswashing and Mega-Event Scrutiny

Saudi Arabia’s hosting of Expo 2030, along with the FIFA World Cup 2034 and numerous other mega-events, has intensified the debate over what critics term “sportswashing”—the use of high-profile international events to improve a country’s reputation and deflect attention from human rights concerns.

The kingdom won the Expo 2030 bid with an overwhelming 119 votes out of 165 cast at the Bureau International des Expositions in November 2023, defeating bids from Busan (29 votes) and Rome (17 votes). The Expo, themed “The Era of Change: Together for a Foresighted Tomorrow,” is expected to welcome 42 million visitors and involve 197 participating countries. The $7.8 billion investment in the Expo site and the broader $92 billion Riyadh transformation represent the largest financial commitment to a world expo in history.

Human rights organizations have called on participating countries and companies to use their involvement as leverage to press for human rights improvements. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have specifically called for the release of political prisoners, labor law reforms, and independent monitoring of construction worker conditions at the Expo site and related infrastructure projects. The precedent of the 2022 Qatar World Cup—which resulted in some labor reforms, including the partial abolition of the kafala system, in response to international pressure—is frequently cited as a model for how mega-event scrutiny can drive incremental improvements.

The Saudi government’s position is that Vision 2030 itself represents the most ambitious reform program in the kingdom’s history, and that the social and economic transformation underway is inherently a human rights project—expanding freedoms, creating opportunities, and improving quality of life for Saudi citizens. Government officials point to the concrete metrics: women driving, working, attending entertainment events; young Saudis accessing opportunities previously unavailable; an economy creating jobs and reducing dependence on oil. The disagreement is not over whether transformation is occurring—it clearly is—but over the nature and limits of that transformation, and whether genuine reform can coexist with systematic repression.

International Response and Diplomatic Dynamics

The international response to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has been characterized by what many observers describe as a fundamental tension between values and interests. Saudi Arabia’s strategic importance—as the world’s largest oil exporter, a key player in Middle Eastern geopolitics, a massive market for defense and infrastructure contracts, and an increasingly significant global investor through PIF—creates powerful incentives for foreign governments to moderate their criticism.

The United States, historically Saudi Arabia’s most important strategic partner, has oscillated between criticism and accommodation. The Biden administration declassified the Khashoggi intelligence assessment and initially promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” but subsequently recalibrated its approach, with President Biden visiting Riyadh in 2022. The Trump administration maintained close ties with MBS throughout, and during Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia in 2025, Bechtel was signed as the delivery partner for King Salman International Airport’s new terminals—a deal worth billions and emblematic of the economic relationship’s resilience.

European governments have been somewhat more vocal in their criticism, particularly around individual cases like Salma al-Shehab’s sentencing, but have also maintained robust economic relationships. The European Parliament has passed multiple resolutions criticizing Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, but member states’ bilateral relationships with the kingdom have continued largely unaffected.

The credit rating upgrades from Moody’s (Aa3, November 2024), S&P (A+, March 2025), and Fitch (A+, July 2025) reflect the international financial community’s assessment that Saudi Arabia’s economic trajectory is positive—an assessment that is largely divorced from human rights considerations. The kingdom’s GDP reached $1.27 trillion in 2025, growing at 4.5 percent, with non-oil GDP accounting for 52 percent of total output for the first time in history. These economic fundamentals ensure that Saudi Arabia will continue to attract international business and investment regardless of its human rights record.

The Reform Paradox: Liberalization Without Liberation

The central tension in Saudi Arabia’s human rights trajectory is the distinction between social liberalization and political liberalization. Under MBS, the kingdom has undergone genuine social transformation—the daily lived experience of Saudi citizens, particularly women and young people, has changed dramatically. The ability to drive, attend concerts, watch movies, travel independently, and participate in the workforce represents real and meaningful expansion of personal freedoms.

But this social liberalization has occurred in the complete absence of political liberalization. There is no elected legislature. There is no independent judiciary. There is no free press. There is no right to peaceful assembly or association. There is no legal opposition. The space for dissent has not merely failed to expand—it has contracted dramatically. The message is clear: the government will decide which freedoms to grant and on what timeline. Any attempt to demand, advocate for, or even publicly discuss reforms outside the framework established by the leadership will be met with severe consequences.

This model—social modernization under authoritarian control—has historical precedents in countries like China and Singapore, where economic growth and expanded personal freedoms coexist with tight political control. Whether this model is sustainable over the long term in Saudi Arabia, and whether the social transformations now underway will eventually create pressures for political reform, are questions that will define the kingdom’s trajectory well beyond the Expo 2030 era.

The kingdom’s young population—approximately 63 percent of Saudi citizens are under 35—has grown up in a period of rapid social change. They have access to global media, social platforms, and international travel in ways that previous generations did not. Whether this generation will be content with the bargain of social freedom without political voice, or whether the appetite for participation in governance will grow as education and exposure expand, remains one of the most consequential unknowns in the region.

Looking Ahead: What Expo 2030 Could Mean for Human Rights

As Saudi Arabia moves toward October 2030, the eyes of the world will focus on Riyadh with an intensity that the kingdom has never before experienced. The six-month Expo, with its 42 million expected visitors and 197 participating nations, will be the largest international gathering the kingdom has ever hosted. The scrutiny that accompanies such an event—from media, from visiting delegations, from international civil society—could create openings for dialogue and improvement that do not exist in the normal course of Saudi governance.

The precedent of previous mega-events suggests that meaningful but limited reforms are possible when international attention is sustained. Qatar’s labor reforms ahead of the 2022 World Cup, while incomplete, represented genuine improvements in workers’ legal protections. The question is whether Saudi Arabia will follow a similar trajectory—using the Expo as a catalyst for targeted improvements in labor rights, media access, and the treatment of specific high-profile prisoners—or whether the kingdom’s confidence in its economic leverage and strategic importance will lead it to resist external pressure.

What is not in question is that the human rights debate will be an integral part of the Expo 2030 story. The kingdom’s remarkable social transformation and its equally remarkable political repression are not separate narratives—they are intertwined aspects of a single governance model. How the international community engages with both dimensions, and whether it finds effective mechanisms to encourage progress while maintaining relationships, will define the human rights legacy of Expo 2030 as much as any policy the Saudi government adopts.

The 42 million visitors who pass through Riyadh’s Expo gates will enter a city that is genuinely different from the Saudi Arabia of a decade ago—more open, more dynamic, more connected to the world. They will also enter a country where a PhD student is serving 34 years for tweets, where a journalist was murdered in a consulate, and where the price of dissent remains among the highest on earth. Holding both of these realities simultaneously, without privileging one over the other, is the essential challenge for anyone seeking to understand Saudi Arabia’s human rights record as it steps onto the world stage.