It is now three and a half years since the takeover of Newcastle United by the Saudi Public Investment Fund and since then NE Bylines has been regularly reviewing what life is like in that Middle Eastern kingdom and what has happened there since that takeover in October 2021. There are some who would claim that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a place where human rights are not respected and that the regime is a murderous regime, which starts illegal wars and responsible for many human rights abuses. But is all that really true? Let’s see what has been happening and look at the hard evidence. How has Saudi Arabia been reported in recent weeks?
Parts I-19 of this survey have covered the period from 7 October 2021 to the end of February this year. So, what has been happening regarding Saudi Arabia in March 2025?
4 March
It was reported in the Middle East Eye on 4March, that a British man was set to go before a court in Saudi Arabia that day over a deleted tweet from 2018 and a perceived association with someone deemed to be a threat to the kingdom’s national security, according to his family and friends. It was noted that Ahmed al-Doush, a father of four, had been returning to the UK after a holiday in August 2024, when he was arrested at the airport in Riyadh. This was the last time he saw his wife and children.
It was further reported that, “the 41-year-old was held for more than five months, including 33 days in solitary confinement during which he was interrogated, before he was brought before a judge in late January and told that charges were being brought. After his first court appearance, Saudi authorities assigned Doush a lawyer and the two men have had one virtual meeting about his case, Doush has told his family”. It was also stated however that his wife, Amaher Nour, told Middle East Eye that when she reached the lawyer by phone, he “denied any knowledge of the case or of her husband”. We were also told that, “the lawyer had since been more receptive, but said he is limited in what he can say because of data protection”.
Also on 4 March, it was reported by Newsweek that Saudi Arabia was extending an “open invitation” for dissidents abroad to return to the kingdom with promises that they will not be prosecuted. It was further noted that, “Saudi Arabia, a strategic US ally, has faced ongoing criticism from rights organizations for its record on human rights, including restrictions on freedom of expression, women’s rights and over executions”.
10 March
On 10 March Human Rights Watch reported that a Saudi activist was in danger of being deported from Bulgaria. They were among twenty organisations that said that Bulgarian authorities should suspend any plans to deport Saudi human rights defender Abdulrahman al-Khalidi to Saudi Arabia, and also that Bulgarian authorities should allow his resettlement to a third country. Human Rights watch argued that, “Bulgarian authorities would violate the Bulgarian, European, and international law obligation of nonrefoulement, which bars returning someone to a country where they would risk facing torture or ill-treatment if they deport this highly visible critic of the Saudi government”.
It was also noted that Al-Khalidi’s lawyer had said that Bulgaria’s National Security Agency had issued an expulsion order against al-Khalidi in February 2024 and on October 21, 2024, the Sofia Administrative Court ruling had confirmed the expulsion order, imposing compulsory expulsion to Saudi Arabia. Al-Khalidi’s expulsion order cannot be executed unless his asylum appeals are exhausted and denied as Al-Khalidi has a separate pending asylum case.
Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch said: “Bulgaria will violate its nonrefoulement obligations and become complicit in Saudi repression if they deport Abdulrahman al-Khalidi to Saudi Arabia before the outcome of his asylum case. Bulgarian and European Union authorities should prevent a patent violation of international and EU law and halt the deportation of al-Khalidi and immediately allow his resettlement to a third country”.
11 March
On 11March NBC News reported that Saudi Arabia was trying to shed its ‘pariah status,’ remaking itself as a key middleman in global conflicts, in the week when it hosted talks in Riyadh between Ukraine and US negotiators over the war in Ukraine.
16 March
On 16 March the New York Times reported that East African leaders and Saudi royals are among those profiting off a lucrative, deadly trade in domestic workers, with one woman talking about the way that she was groped, beat and raped by her boss.
17 March
On 17th March, Middle East Eye reported that at least 274 Kenyan workers, most of whom were women, had died in Saudi Arabia over the past five years. According to a New York Times report published on the day of the final at Wembley, this was despite the Kenyans constituting a young workforce in non-dangerous jobs. It was also noted that, “large numbers of Ugandan workers also died in the Gulf kingdom, but Uganda’s government does not release official figures. Thousands of Ugandan and Kenyan women travel to Saudi Arabia each year to take up domestic jobs such as housekeepers and nannies. But many are returning with stories of unpaid wages, detention, beatings, starvation and sexual assault. Others have returned in coffins.”
18 March
On 18 March it was reported in the Chronicle that the first piece of domestic silverware to be won by Newcastle United since 1955 also represented the club’s greatest sporting triumph since the controversial takeover in 2021, led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). It was further reported that the Gulf kingdom has been accused of “using Newcastle United and other investments, such as the LIV Golf tour, to ‘sportswash’ its international reputation amid concerns about human rights abuses”.
It was further reported that Saudi Arabia had reportedly executed more than 300 people in 2024, while a recent delegation of activists who visited Newcastle last month had highlighted the case of Manahel al-Otaibi – “a fitness instructor and women’s rights campaigner who was handed an 11-year jail sentence and who Amnesty International says has been “forcibly disappeared”. The NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing group, which has urged fans and North East politicians to speak out against the regime, said it was “hard not to see this as a success for sportswashing” after watching Magpies chairman and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan lifting the trophy on the Wembley pitch”.
It was also noted that the fans group had said: “Fans of other clubs, while happy for our fans for winning our first domestic trophy in 70 years, are also pointing out that it comes at a price, which is to say nothing about the human rights abuses of the owners. The whole of football is also worried about the future of the game. Will football be transformed into simply a plaything and propaganda tool for dictatorships and oligarchs? Is this the future we want for the once beautiful game?”
There have been many across the world who have feared that FIFA presenting the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia will inevitably lead to many immigrant workers, who will build the stadia being killed due to lack of basic safety measures.
21 March
Then on 21 March came the news that a migrant worker had died while working on a new stadium being built for the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
It was reported that, “Muhammad Arshad, from Pakistan, fell to his death from an upper level during the construction of the Aramco Stadium in the eastern city of Al Khobar on 12 March, according to sources with knowledge of the incident. His death is the first-known death of a migrant worker linked to the 2034 World Cup and comes just three months after the Gulf kingdom was named the host of the tournament by Fifa.”
30 March
On 30 March, North East Bylines reported that human rights campaigners had taken exception to an early day motion by Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah. In the piece it was argued that, “serious questions must be raised about Labour MPs in the North East and their commitment to human rights. Have they remained silent about the terrible oppression of Saudi women, the numerous minors on death row and total suppression of free speech just because the Saudi state owns Newcastle United? Unless Chi Onwurah and North East MPs start doing their jobs by speaking up for the victims of the regime which owns Newcastle United, then it can only be concluded that they have been well and truly sportswashed.”.
So, there is evidence about what was happening concerning Saudi Arabia in March 2025. Are those who accuse the Saudi regime of having a bad human rights record being fair? What should we say and what should we do today and in the future, in order to respond to the human rights record of the Saudi regime?
Perhaps we ought to remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who visited Newcastle on 13 November 1967, to receive an honorary degree at Newcastle University. In a sermon in 1959, King noted that, “we must learn that the passive acceptance of an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby become a participant in its evil. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
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