Valid passports necessary for iqama renewal, expats told

March 13, 2014

Riyadh, Mar 13: Pakistanis should ensure they have valid passports to renew their residence permits as required by new Saudi legislation.

Pakistan Consul General Aftab Ahmed Khokhar issued this warning here recently at a community function.

He said the Saudi government recently introduced new laws making it mandatory for expatriates to have valid passports to renew their iqamas.He said many Pakistanis run into trouble because they do not check the expiry dates on their passports. Doing so would make life easier for passport holders and consular officials.
Khokhar was speaking at the eighth Pakistan Welfare Society (PWS) function in Jeddah. He praised the PWS and said the consulate would give it surplus Haj medicines for its community outreach programs.

Since 2006, the PWS has been holding, every two weeks, free medical camps, health seminars, employment and educational workshops, student career seminars, women's health seminars and medical screening for students.
The PWS held 198 free medical camps in 2013, providing medical tests for more than 14,000 people.
The event included a panel discussion to raise awareness of heart ailments, epilepsy, strokes and how to tackle medical emergencies.

Shakeel Ansari, a neurologist, spoke about seizures, strokes and epilepsy. Asif Malik, a consultant cardiologist, explained that people should watch what they eat.
“The major cause of hearts attacks is our lifestyle and food intake, including smoking, and drinking carbohydrate and energy drinks,” he said.
Malik also urged the consulate to help people who do not have adequate medical insurance to cover treatment at hospitals.

Comments

I have been through that problem. My passport was about to expire and my iqama was not getting renewed. I asked HR and they told me about the expiry of Passport.
So, I had to visit the Pakistani embassy for passport renewal. It took a few days.
After the renewal process was successful, I told my HR and they immediately renewed my Iqama.
But because it was my mistake so I had to pay 500 Riyals as the fine for late iqama renewal.

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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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