Press release regarding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s candidacy for the presidency of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations for the 69th session in 2025

Press Release
SAND Human Rights Organization
London
March 28, 2024,

We have noted the nomination of Saudi Arabia for the chairmanship of United Nations Commission on the Status of Women for the 69th session in 2025.

Due to the deteriorating human rights situation in general, and women’s rights in particular, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we express our deep concern and strong condemnation of this nomination.

We affirm that the status of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia remains highly backward and regressive, despite the false propaganda used by the Saudi regime to obscure the truth and manipulate the world opinion. Saudi Arabia’s nomination for the chairmanship of this committee exacerbates the situation and increases the scale of violations and loss of human rights.

We condemn the nomination of a country like Saudi Arabia for the chairmanship of the Committee on the Status of Women, despite its dark history of violations against women’s rights. This is the same regime that has targeted women activists and defenders of women’s rights such as Aziza al-Yousef, Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan, Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Sada, Sumaya al-Nufayi and others.

It is the same regime that imprisoned Salma Al-shihab and Norah Al-Qahtani for 27 and 45 years respectively for a few tweets on platform “X”, in addition to the suffering of women in Saudi Arabia from marginalization, unemployment, and a clear weakness in the system of protection against violence, harassment, and exploitation.

This repugnant duplicity practiced by the international community against human rights, and the bidding on it for economic and regional interests, is completely rejected by all honorable Saudis, activists, and freedom seekers around the world.