Labor Ministry move gives firms Saudization relief

February 9, 2015

Jeddah, Feb 9: The Labor Ministry has softened its Saudization drive in favor of businesses by canceling a previous decision that demanded 13 weeks for confirmation of a Saudi’s appointment as a full employee under Nitaqat.

Under the new decision, a Saudi would be calculated in the Nitaqat system soon after his registration with the General Organization for Social Insurance, provided the company must have paid the worker’s premium.

“The new system is applicable to all Nitaqat categories as well as small firms having nine workers or less,” a Labor Ministry statement said, adding that the new decision would be applicable from Feb. 22. It cancels all the previous decisions that contradict with it, the ministry said.

The cancellation came in a response to a request made by the Council of Saudi Chambers to protect the interests of private companies.

The ministry had implemented the mechanism about six months ago to ensure that private companies follow the Saudization regulations and prevent false nationalization of jobs.

The ministry was calculating the number of Saudis at a company over successive periods of 13 weeks. The move was aimed at tracking whether employers are holding on to their Saudi employees, said Hattab Al-Anazi, spokesman of the Ministry of Labor.

In the first month, the Saudization percentage is calculated by counting the new Saudi employee as a one-third employee, in the second month the employee is calculated as a two-thirds employee. In the third month, each new Saudi is counted as a full employee.

Under Nitaqat, there are varying Saudization percentages for various industries. For example, the quota at banks employing 500 people or more is a minimum of 49 percent.

For the media sector, it is 19 percent. Commercial establishments, insurance companies and public schools also have to stick to the 19 percent minimum.

For some business activities, such as lingerie shops, 100 percent Saudization is required, specifically aimed at providing employment to Saudi women.

Official figures put the level of unemployment at 10 percent, but among women employment rate could be as high as 30 percent.

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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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