Amnesty International Report 2017/18

56

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

periods of more than two years, placed those imprisoned in indefinite and prolonged solitary 

confinement, and subjected many of those released to probation periods in which they were 

forced to spend up to 12 hours per day in a police station, amounting to arbitrary deprivation 

of liberty.

Saudi Arabia witnessed the promotion of Mohammed bin Salman to the role of Crown Prince 

in June as part of a broader re-engineering of the political landscape. In the months that 

followed, the authorities intensified their crackdown on freedom of expression, detaining more 

than 20 prominent religious figures, writers, journalists, academics and activists in one week in 

September. They also put human rights defenders on trial on charges related to their peaceful 

activism before the Specialized Criminal Court, a tribunal set up to try terrorism-related cases. 

At the end of the year, despite the image the palace wished to portray of a more tolerant 

country, the majority of Saudi Arabia’s human rights defenders were either in prison or facing 

grossly unfair trials.

ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

Elsewhere, human rights advocacy and journalistic reporting, as well as criticism of official 

institutions, led to prosecution and imprisonment and, in some cases, smear campaigns 

orchestrated by the government or its supporters.

In Iran, the authorities jailed scores of peaceful critics including women’s rights activists, 

minority rights and environmental activists, trade unionists, lawyers, and those seeking truth, 

justice and reparation for the mass executions of the 1980s.

In Bahrain, the government arbitrarily detained human rights defenders and government 

critics and subjected others to travel bans or the stripping of their nationality, dissolved the 

independent al-Wasat newspaper and the opposition political group Waad, maintained a ban 

on demonstrations in the capital, Manama, and used unnecessary and excessive force to 

disperse protests elsewhere.

In Morocco and Western Sahara, the authorities prosecuted and imprisoned a number of 

journalists, bloggers and activists who criticized officials or reported on human rights violations, 

corruption or popular protests, such as those that took place in the northern Rif region, where 

security forces conducted mass arrests of largely peaceful protesters, including children, and 

sometimes used excessive or unnecessary force.

The Kuwaiti authorities imprisoned several government critics and online activists under legal 

provisions that criminalized comments deemed offensive to the Emir or damaging to relations 

with neighbouring states.

In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a number of journalists and online activists were subjected to 

arbitrary arrest, death threats and smear campaigns, a pattern that escalated in the run-up to 

an independence referendum in September called by the region’s president.

In Yemen, the Huthi armed group arbitrarily arrested and detained critics, journalists and 

human rights defenders in the capital, Sana’a, and other areas they controlled.

Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities banned entry into Israel or the Occupied Palestinian 

Territories to individuals supporting or working for organizations that had issued or promoted a 

statement which the authorities deemed to be a call to boycott Israel or Israeli entities, 

including settlements, targeted both Palestinian and Israeli human rights NGOs through 

harassment and campaigns to undermine their work, and deployed forces that used rubber-

coated metal bullets and live ammunition against Palestinian protesters in the West Bank and 

Gaza Strip, killing at least 20 and injuring thousands.

ONLINE REPRESSION

Governments other than Egypt also made efforts to increase their control of expression on the 

internet. The State of Palestine adopted the Electronic Crimes Law in July, permitting the 

---

Amnesty International Report 2017/18

57

arbitrary detention of journalists, whistle-blowers and others who criticize the authorities online. 

The law allowed for prison sentences and up to 25 years’ hard labour for anyone deemed to 

have disturbed “public order”, “national unity” or “social peace”. Several Palestinian 

journalists and human rights defenders were charged under the law.

Jordan continued to block access to certain websites, including online forums. Oman 

blocked the online publication of Mowaten newspaper, and the effect of trials against Azamn

newspaper and some of its journalists continued to reverberate following its publication in 

2016 of allegations of corruption in the government and the judiciary. In Iran, judicial officials 

attempted to block the popular messaging application Telegram, but failed because of 

opposition from the government; other popular social media websites including Facebook, 

Twitter and YouTube were still blocked.

GULF POLITICAL CRISIS

The political crisis in the Gulf triggered in June, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates 

(UAE), Bahrain and Egypt severed relations with Qatar and accused it of financing and 

harbouring terrorists and interfering in the domestic affairs of its neighbours, had an impact 

beyond the paralysis of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE 

announced that they would treat criticism of the measures taken against Qatar, or sympathy 

with Qatar or its people, as a criminal offence, punishable by a prison term.

CIVIL SOCIETY FIGHT-BACK

Civil society did, however, make significant efforts to stem the tide of measures attempting to 

restrict freedom of expression. In Tunisia, activists put the brakes on a new bill that could 

bolster impunity for security forces by criminalizing criticism of police conduct and granting 

officers immunity from prosecution for unnecessary use of lethal force. In Palestine, the 

authorities agreed to amend the Electronic Crimes Law following huge pressure from civil 

society.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF

ABUSES BY ARMED GROUPS

Armed groups targeted religious minorities in several countries. The armed group calling itself 

Islamic State (IS) and other armed groups killed and injured scores of civilians across Iraq and 

Syria in suicide bombings and other deadly attacks that targeted Shi’a religious shrines and 

other public spaces in predominantly Shi’a neighbourhoods. The UN reported in January that 

nearly 2,000 Yazidi women and children remained in IS captivity in Iraq and Syria. They were 

enslaved and subjected to rape, beatings and other torture. In Egypt, IS claimed responsibility 

for the bombing of two churches which left at least 44 dead in April, and unidentified militants 

launched a bomb and gun attack at a mosque in North Sinai during Friday prayers in 

November, killing more than 300 Sufi Muslim worshippers – the deadliest attack by an armed 

group in Egypt since 2011.

In Yemen, the Huthis and their allies subjected members of the Baha’i community to 

arbitrary arrest and detention.

RESTRICTIONS BY GOVERNMENTS

In Algeria, the authorities were engaged in a new clampdown against the Ahmadi religious 

movement; during the year more than 280 Ahmadis were prosecuted because of their 

religious beliefs and practices.

---