Al-Riyami: Saudi Arabia deported 500,000 Yemeni expatriates, executed 89 others

The Ministry of Human Rights, in partnership with the Ministry of Expatriate Affairs, held on Monday in Sanaa a press conference on the violations of the Saudi regime against Yemenis.

At the conference, which was held under the slogan “brutal crimes and gross violations under UN complicity,” the Minister of Human Rights, Ali Al-Dailami, affirmed that thousands of Yemeni expatriates in Saudi lands are constantly and escalatingly exposed to various crimes and violations without any reason.

Al-Dailami stated that the Saudi regime committed heinous crimes against Yemenis and violations of international humanitarian law to achieve its goals in Yemen.

“The US-Saudi aggression coalition during eight years of war and siege on Yemen was unable to achieve its military goals, so it resorted to targeting Yemeni expatriates and using them as a means of war, committing the most heinous violations and crimes against them,” Al-Dailami said.

The Saudi regime continues to arbitrarily deport thousands of expatriates and loot all their money and property, in addition to raising sponsorship and residence fees and other unfair fees, he added.

The Minister of Human Rights mentioned that the Saudi regime has arrested and detained tens of thousands of Yemeni expatriates, male and female, for eight years, on false charges.

He affirmed that there are more than 50,000 expatriates inside Saudi prisons without any trials or legal procedures convicting them, 20,000 expatriates detained and hidden, including those who underwent unfair trials on fabricated charges, and 20 expatriates who were extrajudicially executed, in addition to the direct executions of more than 2,000 expatriates who were killed at the borders.

Al-Dailami explained that the Saudi regime has issued death sentences for more than 20 Yemeni expatriates whose families are demanding disclosure of the fate of their bodies, while there are about 50 expatriates who have been sentenced to prison terms for decades, and all of these sentences are death and imprisonment under false and fabricated charges and lawsuits.

He stressed that the trials and sentences issued by the Saudi regime against Yemeni expatriates constitute a gross violation of the rules and principles of international law and human rights law against the issuance of extrajudicial death sentences.

In the conference, Al-Dailami touched on the forced returns, arrests, and disappearances of thousands of Yemeni expatriates from their houses and places of work and their placement in prisons without any legal justification.

The Human Rights Minister indicated that the Ministry of Human Rights had verified that the Saudi regime had detained and imprisoned a number of women estimated at 300 to 500 expatriates in Al-Kharj prison, and the latest of those was the arrest of two Umrah performers in the Great Mosque of Mecca.

Al-Dailami denounced the negative role of the United Nations and its organizations towards expatriate issues, calling on the Human Rights Council and the Security Council to form a committee to investigate the facts and all the violations that Yemeni expatriates are exposed to in Saudi prisons and save them from extrajudicial executions.

The Human Rights Minister called on the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council to hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss the violations and crimes of the Saudi regime against Yemeni expatriates in general and captives in particular.

He also called on the High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct transparent and responsible monitoring and documentation of all crimes and violations committed by the Saudi regime against Yemeni expatriates and African migrants and to present them to the Human Rights Council.

For his part, Deputy Minister of Expatriate Affairs Zayed Al-Riyami confirmed that the violations of the Saudi regime began in 1990 and are still continuing. He pointed out that the Saudi regime has deported more than 3.5 million expatriates, including nearly 1.5 million since the start of the aggression.

Al-Riyami stated that the Saudi authorities violate international standards regarding workers’ rights, as they prevent Yemeni expatriates from practicing 28 professions within their lands.

The Deputy Minister of Expatriates explained that the Saudi regime executed 89 Yemeni expatriates during the period from 2004 to 2019 under false pretexts and charges. He indicated that the percentage of death sentences in the Saudi Kingdom reached 82 percent, of which 15 percent were issued against Yemeni expatriates.

He indicated that the Saudi regime carried out death sentences against seven Yemenis in 2022, including three prisoners of war, and executed two expatriates in 2023, based on secret trials, and the defendants were not allowed the right to defense.

“The biggest violation practiced by the Saudi regime is the arrest of expatriates and then claiming that they are prisoners,” Al-Riyami said. “It also violates the rights and freedoms of expatriates, detains them in fictitious cases, and then turns them into prisoners of war to barter for them.”

The conference aimed to inform the international community, human rights organizations, and others about the crimes and violations committed by the Saudi regime against humanity in general and Yemenis in particular.

On the sidelines of the press conference, the Ministry of Human Rights published its report entitled “Prisoners of War… Crimes and Violations”.