Saudi Arabia: Tourists and pilgrims from around the world jailed for social media posts - including British father of four

Visitors to Saudi Arabia, including those travelling for tourism and religious pilgrimages such as Hajj and Umrah, risk being detained, subjected to grossly unfair trials, and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for their social media activity - including social media posts published before entering the Kingdom - Amnesty International and ALQST said today.

Amnesty and ALQST have documented the cases of eight people, predominantly from Global South and Middle Eastern countries of origin, detained while visiting Saudi Arabia between July 2022 and late 2025 for their social media posts. Four of them were visiting for Hajj and Umrah. They have faced prolonged arbitrary detention, grossly unfair trials, delayed access to consular support, and were banned from sharing information about their cases with relatives abroad.

Among them is Ahmed al-Doush, a British national who broke down during a consular visit last week and ended the meeting early, unable to continue speaking about his children. Ahmed has been held in a Saudi prison since his arrest at Riyadh airport on 31 August 2024, detained as he was returning home to the UK after visiting with his pregnant wife and three children. He was sentenced to 10 years by the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), reduced to five years on appeal in April 2026, for charges based on social media posts he appears to have published before entering Saudi Arabia, leading to a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention decision that his ongoing detention is improperly based on the exercise of his right to free expression through social media posts and that therefore ‘no trial should have taken place.’

His family report that his wellbeing has clearly deteriorated as his hopelessness for his situation increases. During a consular visit on 24 June, Ahmed became visibly distressed discussing his children whom he has been unable to speak to regularly for four months and ended the visit 12 minutes early. His medically prescribed dietary plan has been discontinued for approximately six months, and he is being held in a cell built for six to eight people currently housing around 16 detainees. His family learned Ahmed has begun refraining from interactions with others as his despair increases.

His family contact has been severely restricted. Ahmed was permitted only one call home during the entire month of May and was denied his scheduled call as recently as yesterday. Prison authorities have instructed him that if he discusses his conditions, health or legal proceedings during calls, they will be terminated, and he will face punishment. His family previously lost contact with him for nearly three weeks after he spoke to his children in English.

Haydee Dijkstal, Barrister at 33 Bedford Row Chambers and counsel for Mr Al-Doush, said:

“No person should feel forgotten by their own Government when navigating the nightmare of unfair and arbitrary detention. It is past due for the UK government to stand up for one of its own citizens and recognise what the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has already found - that Ahmed’s right to free expression and a fair trial were severely violation, his ongoing detention is ‘arbitrary’ and he should be immediately released. At a time when Ahmed’s physical and mental health continue to deteriorate, and his young family in the UK increasingly struggle from his unjust absence, they should see genuine steps by the UK Government to find a solution that would bring Ahmed home.”

International pressure needed

Amnesty and ALQST call on states to pressure Saudi Arabia to end its crackdown against both visitors and its own population and immediately release those held for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Foreign ministries should also ensure their travel advice for Saudi Arabia is updated so that travellers are aware of the risks posed by their past social media activity, especially as the Kingdom attracts more tourists and gears up to host Expo 2030 and the World Cup in 2034.

Saudi Arabia has set a goal of 150 million tourists by 2030 as part of its flagship Vision 2030 programme aimed at diversifying Saudi Arabia's economy, fostering a "vibrant" society and positioning the Kingdom as a global destination.

Yet, Saudi Arabia maintains an extremely restrictive legislative environment. The Kingdom's counter-terror court, the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), has routinely used vague provisions under the anti-cybercrime and counter-terror laws equating permissible expression with "terrorism".

Ahmed is not alone: a pattern of arrests

Saudi authorities arrested Dutch-Yemeni national Fahd Ramadhan on 20 November 2023 and held him in arbitrary detention for 18 months. Ramadhan was never formally charged, but told officials from the Dutch embassy in Riyadh that he believed the reason for his detention was sympathising online with a critic of the Saudi royal family. Interrogators had asked him to sign a document listing four of his tweets. He was released in June 2025.

Another individual, whose name has been withheld for security reasons, was detained for one year and eight months without a trial after being arrested in Mecca while performing the Umrah pilgrimage. He was detained four hours after sharing a post on social media criticising the Saudi authorities, which he deleted two hours later. He has since been released.

In 2023, Saudi authorities arrested another individual performing the Umrah pilgrimage for holding up a small piece of paper calling for the release of a political prisoner held in another country, unrelated to Saudi Arabia, and released nearly a year later.

Haidar Slim, a Lebanese national, was detained after performing Umrah. He filmed himself chanting a Shia religious chant, which later circulated online. He was subsequently prosecuted under the Cybercrime Law for "publishing content that undermines public order and religious values" and sentenced to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 10,000 SAR. He was released after serving nearly three years of his sentence, following diplomatic intervention.

Amr Abdelfattah, a French national and father of three, was also detained on 16 June 2024 while in Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj pilgrimage. Abdelfattah was detained for more than 11 months before eventually being put on trial in May 2025 on charges relating to his online expression and a visa issue. Authorities alleged the online expression was "insulting the government" and "praising prosecuted individuals".

Those detained faced multiple due process violations. In some cases, detainees who didn't understand Arabic were forced to sign documents written in Arabic without understanding their contents. Some who were eventually released reported not being provided with adequate clothing or personal belongings.

At least two of the foreigners whose cases were documented by Amnesty and ALQST had restricted contact with their family members based abroad.

Throughout his detention, Abdelfattah has repeatedly been denied access to legal representation and family visits, and French consular officials have been denied trial access. From September 2024 until 5 August 2025, he was permitted to make weekly 15-minute phone calls to his wife, but those calls were cut off whenever he attempted to discuss his treatment in prison or provide updates on his trial. Contact with his family remained restricted until recently, when weekly communication was permitted again. He is not allowed to speak French with his family, only in Arabic so that prison officers can monitor the conversation.

Both Ahmed al-Doush and Amr Abdelfattah's well-being and mental health has deteriorated significantly while in prison.

In addition to the eight documented cases, Amnesty and ALQST are aware of 13 additional cases of tourists being arrested for social media activity, including some whose cases the organisations have not been able to investigate. These include a US national detained for two months without charge in late 2025 after posting a TikTok video about his experiences in the country and a Canadian national arrested in April 2023 and interrogated over social media posts and "likes". Other cases reported in the media, including that of a man detained during Hajj after criticising Saudi authorities' alleged neglect after the 2024 Hajj when 1,301 pilgrims died, mostly due to heat stress, according to the Saudi Ministry of Health. Amid the prevailing fear and lack of transparency in the country, the true scale of such expression-related arrests is likely greater, with some information only emerging after detainees are released and able to leave the country.

Bissan Fakih, MENA Campaigner at Amnesty International, said:

“As Saudi Arabia positions itself as an international tourism destination and invests heavily in tourism as part of its Vision 2030 plan, it is simultaneously arresting and sentencing visitors to the Kingdom to lengthy prison terms simply for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Individuals travelling to Saudi Arabia to undertake once-in-a-lifetime religious pilgrimage journeys or to visit their loved ones are suddenly thrust into a nightmare scenario - without warning - torn apart from their families and all of this just for social media posts.”

Nadyeen Abdulaziz, Monitoring and Advocacy Officer at ALQST, said:

“The Saudi authorities’ long-standing suppression of the free speech of their own citizens and residents is now being extended to foreign visitors. Behind the Saudi government’s carefully curated image of being open to the world lies a prevailing climate of fear, maintained by severe repression inside the country.”

Saudi nationals face the same crackdown

Amnesty and ALQST have documented dozens of cases of Saudi nationals detained for their social media posts, including Red Cross worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, serving a 20-year prison sentence and currently forcibly disappeared after posting satirical posts on X, and fitness influencer and woman human rights defender Manahel al-Otaibi who is serving a 5-year prison sentence for tweeting in support of women's rights including under the hashtag #EndMaleGuardianship, and posting a photo of herself online in a shopping centre not wearing an abaya (traditional dress).

Amnesty has also found that authorities across Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, have intensified a clampdown on the right to freedom of expression after the US-Israeli war with Iran.