Saudi: SIM cards with IDs are on sale in black market

July 26, 2013

Jeddah, Jul 26: Despite strict regulations, street vendors in the Kingdom are still selling SIM cards of all major mobile firms without customers providing proof of identity.

According to regulations, buying and charging a SIM card requires a customer to provide an identity number. The regulations were introduced to prevent misuse and criminal activities.

A seller, Abdul Rahman, told Arab News that SIM cards without ID numbers cost between SR50 and SR1,500, depending on the uniqueness of the number sought by the customer. An expatriate can have as many as 10 different SIM cards while a Saudi citizen can have 20 numbers.

“People can buy SIM cards from us without producing any document. Those who want to register their SIM cards on their name are welcome to do so, but if someone doesn’t have an ID or doesn’t want to buy the SIM on his ID, we can provide the person with a SIM card without any problem because the seller himself will provide the ID number,” he said.

When asked whose ID numbers are used, Abdul Rahman said it could be anyone and buyers need not worry about this. “We have cards with different ID numbers written on them for customers who don’t have iqama numbers or others who don’t want to use their own iqama number,” he said.

If anyone wants to register the SIM with his ID number, the street vendor does that too by forwarding a message to the mobile phone company along with a photocopy of the ID card.

Abdul Rahman said there is no danger of being caught out by the mobile phone firms. “Anyone can get any SIM card from us without any problem. If someone wants a particular number, that can also be arranged but it comes at a premium,” he said.

Zaheer Ahmed, a buyer, told Arab News that he bought a card without quoting his iqama number. The vendor provided him with someone else’s iqama number to be filled in on the form. “I asked him about this, but he said I shouldn't worry about anything,” he said.

Ahmed said the vendor told him that he has contacts with people at mobile firms so there is no possibility of getting into trouble.

“I went to the STC office and asked them about this practice, but they said if anyone bought SIM cards from them to sell, it was not their problem,” he said.

He said the sale of such SIM cards in the open market would encourage people to misuse them and even commit fraud.

Amina Rasheed, a Jeddah resident, said she and many of her friends receive crank calls from individuals not known to them. “I blocked these numbers on some occasions, but they continued to harass me by calling from different numbers,” she said.

Another buyer, Mamoon Malik, said it was common to see vendors selling SIM cards in the market. “Even the officials at phone companies are aware of this practice,” he said.

Arab News could not get comment from mobile companies.

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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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