Saudi: 32,000 illegal expats held in Eastern Province

March 9, 2014

Dammam, Mar 9: Col. Ziyad Al-Ruqaiti, spokesman for Eastern Province police, said 32,015 expatriates have been arrested in the province’s various cities, governorates and villages for violation of residency and labor law since the launch of the inspections campaign.

He said the arrested persons have been handed over to the directorate and branches dealing with illegal expatriates affiliated with the Eastern Province. He said the participating authorities include the passport and labor offices.

Law enforcement authorities are continuing with their efforts to arrest expatriates in violation of the rules through intensive field campaigns and raids that are targeted at locations harboring violators. Special teams conduct field campaigns and raids acting on information about the existence of illegal expatriates in certain locations.

Al-Ruqaiti warned citizens and residents against harboring law violators, or hesitating to report any violations. He added that security campaigns will continue until the phenomenon of violation is eliminated.

Mohammad Al-Faleh, director general of the Ministry of Labor in the Eastern Province, said that the total number of arrested violators since the start of the follow-up campaign reached 1,586 violators in the Eastern Province. Those arrested have been handed to the directorates and branches of expatriate detention centers of Eastern Province police.

He said 851 people were in violation of Article 39, which concerns working for people other than the sponsor; 60 were in violation of Article 38, which is concerned with working in professions that are not specified in the passport, and 675 in violation of Article 25, which has to do with fictitious employment.

Al-Faleh’s remarks came after a number of officers and administrative officials were honored for their outstanding performance in the labor correction campaigns launched by the Ministries of Labor and Interior.

Prince Saud bin Naif, governor of Eastern Province, his deputy Prince Jalawi bin Abdulaziz and the minister of labor issued directives to form a higher security committee under the presidency of Khaled Al-Battal, the province’s secretary-general. The committee will meet once a month to overcome any obstacle in the way of correcting labor market anomalies.

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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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