Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy restricts almost all political rights and civil liberties. No officials at the national level are elected. The regime relies on pervasive surveillance, the criminalization of dissent, appeals to sectarianism and ethnicity, and public spending supported by oil revenues to maintain power. Women and members of religious minority groups face extensive discrimination in law and in practice. Working conditions for the large expatriate labor force are often exploitative.

• The authorities escalated their use of capital punishment during the year. According to Agence France-Presse, at least 338 people were put to death in 2024, the largest number in decades and up sharply from 170 in 2023. At least 117 of the total were executed for drug-related crimes.
• In a series of orders between February and August, the government instructed civil servants, local officials, teachers, and university students to wear traditional Saudi national dress when at work or in educational facilities, with specific guidelines on attire for different functions.
• In September, the king appointed new members to the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council), a 150-seat advisory body with no legislative authority. They included 19 new women members, increasing women’s representation on the council to 20 percent.
• The government continued efforts to combat corruption, though without the benefits of transparency and due process. A law approved in February granted protections to whistleblowers, witnesses, and other individuals involved in criminal and judicial proceedings, and in July the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha) announced that 155 Saudi officials had been arrested for various offenses after a series of raids over the past month. In September, the kingdom’s former director of public security, Lieutenant General Khalid bin Qarar al-Harbi, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on corruption charges following an investigation led by Nazaha.
• In addition to the many political activists who were serving lengthy prison sentences in 2024, ordinary Saudi citizens and residents faced arrest and heavy prison terms for expression-related offenses, including use of social media to criticize the government or its laws. In September, law enforcement officials warned that those who drop or mistreat the Saudi flag could face fines or up to one year in prison. In October, Saudi cartoonist Mohammed al-Ghamdi was sentenced to 23 years in prison for cartoons published in Qatar’s Lusail newspaper that were deemed insulting to the Saudi government and sympathetic to Qatar.

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For additional background information, see last year’s full report.