Saudi: 8-year expat cap plan under review

May 26, 2014

Jeddah, May 26: The Labor Ministry announced Sunday that it has finalized seven new regulations, including a law that allows expats to transfer their sponsorship onto new employers without the permission of their current sponsors.

Ahmed Al-Humaidan, deputy minister for labor policies, said a working team has been appointed to conduct more studies on the draft law that restricts the stay of expats in the Kingdom in order to propose alternatives and other solutions by the first quarter of the coming Hijri year.

Many companies and employers had objected to the move restricting expats’ period of stay in the Kingdom to a maximum of eight years and discouraging them from bringing their families, saying it would negatively affect their businesses.

The new transfer of service law, which has been published on the ministry’s website (http://www.ma3an.gov.sa), insisted that it is allowed on the basis of certain conditions and should be endorsed by the labor minister.

The law said such transfers are allowed if the worker had a labor dispute with the sponsor and the latter failed to attend the two labor court sessions without any legitimate reason. In addition, judicial authorities should have proof that the sponsor deliberately tried to delay the case and that the worker should not have caused the delay.

An expat can also transfer his sponsor if the previous sponsor did not pay his salary or delayed its payment for three months continuously, provided the worker did not cause the delay.

“The condition stands if the employer was absent and could not carry out his duties because of travel, imprisonment or death, while failing to appoint an agent to take care of his firms and workers,” the law said, explaining other conditions.

Ahmed Al-Humaidan, deputy minister for labor policies, said the ministry has completed discussions on 24 labor regulations with the participation of officials, lawyers and consultants.

“We have presented the draft laws on our website to initiate discussions and allow businessmen, ordinary citizens and expat to give their opinions,” he said, adding that a number of workshops have been conducted for this purpose.

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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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