Expats see relief in new Labor Law

Jeddah, Dec 22: The new Labor Law, which has been amended by the Shoura Council recently, offers a range of incentives to both Saudi and foreign workers in the private sector.

The amended law insists that an employer should obtain written permission from the worker before transferring him to another place.

The draft law, however, allows an employer to ask an employee to work in a different place in emergency situations. But the duration should not exceed 30 days in a year. The employer should also meet the worker’s transfer and residency expenditure during that period, the law said.

It also stressed that a worker should be given a written notice by the employer, before firing him from job, after an absence of 20 days if he remained off work for more than 30 days during a one-year contract period (it was 10 days in the previous law).

If he/she is absent for 15 days continuously, a written notice should be given after 10 days (instead of 5).

An employer can fire a worker, nullifying his contract and without paying him any compensation if he/she remains absent for 30 days (earlier it was 20) in a year or more than 15 days (in place of 10 days).

“An employee should not be asked to work more than 40 hours weekly and more than eight hours daily. Working hours during Ramadan shall be reduced to not more than 35 hours per week for Muslims and not more than seven hours daily,” the law said.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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