NEW YORK: United Nati­ons human rights experts deplored Saudi Arabia’s continued use of counterterrorism and security-related laws against human rights defenders, and urged the release of all those detained for peacefully exercising their rights, said a press statement issued on Tuesday.

“The rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are severely restricted in Saudi Arabia,” the group said in the joint statement.

Religious figures, writers, journalists, academics and civic activists are being targeted, along with members of the banned Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), in a “worrying pattern of widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests and detention”, they continued.

“We are witnessing the persecution of human rights defenders for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly, association and belief, as well as in retaliation for their work. The government has ignored repeated calls by UN experts and others to halt these violations, rectify them, and prevent their recurrence,” they said.

More than 60 prominent religious figures, writers, journalists, academics and civic activists are reported to have been detained in a wave of arrests since September, adding to a list of past cases which had already been raised by UN experts with the government.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2018