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.