Saudi: 240,000 expats legalize status

June 7, 2013

Jeddah, Jun 7: Nearly 240,000 expatriates have so far corrected their work status by transferring their sponsorship to companies where they presently work or to new employers, since the announcement of an amnesty for illegals two months ago.

“A total of 239,883 expat workers have corrected their status so far,” the Ministry of Labor said in a statement, adding that 34,262 workers on average across the Kingdom had their status corrected every week.

The ministry added that 221,262 foreign workers had changed their profession during the amnesty period, with 30,180 workers on average receiving the service weekly.

“Thus, as many as 461,145 expats have so far made use of the ministry’s services,” the statement said.

The ministry’s Riyadh offices extended their services to 78,833 workers to change their sponsorship. The Makkah region came second with 45,576 transferring their sponsorships. The Baha office had the lowest number of 2,104 transfer cases. As a result of the huge crowd of expatriates who want to correct their status before the expiry of the amnesty on July 3, the ministry has canceled the annual leave of its workers at headquarters as well as branch offices this summer.

“The leave has been cancelled to help as many expatriates as possible to correct their status,” the ministry said, adding that employees would be allowed to enjoy their leave soon after the end of the amnesty period.

“Those who wish to surrender their leave will be compensated,” the ministry said.

Employers whose foreign workers have been allowed to transfer their sponsorships without their permission would be compensated with recruitment visas if labor offices found their demand genuine.

In a related development, Brig. Mohammed Al-Anazi, director of expatriates department at the Passport Office in Riyadh, said that more than 150,000 illegals have already left the Kingdom.

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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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