GCHR's annual report highlights challenges to freedom of expression and civic space in MENA, showcasing its ongoing advocacy to support HRDs and civil society to counter growing repression.
This statement was originally published on gc4hr.org on 24 March 2025.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The main objective of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) is to foster a vibrant and safe civic space in which human rights defenders (HRDs) and other civil society actors are free to work for the protection and promotion of human rights. Throughout 2024, GCHR continued to support HRDs, including independent lawyers, journalists, academics and online activists, across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with an emphasis on the Gulf region and neighbouring countries, through its core activities of documentation and research, monitoring and publicising cases of HRDs at risk, advocacy and campaigns, capacity building and protection and assistance.
Throughout 2024, GCHR, alongside its local partners and international allies, continued to play a vital role in ensuring that cases that might otherwise not receive the attention they deserve are brought to the fore in predominantly English-speaking media and advocacy circles. GCHR continued its work in coalitions with partner organisations on campaigns for imprisoned HRDs including its co-founder Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja in Bahrain and Advisory Board member Ahmed Mansoor in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In 2024, GCHR issued 86 appeals and six urgent actions, joint statements and letters relating to violations against WHRDs and HRDs across the region. GCHR also published 22 reports, either alone or jointly with partners, including joint submissions on Qatar, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait for their respective UN Periodic Reviews and periodic reports of violations of freedom of expression and assembly in Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan and Yemen. GCHR’s reports also covered the psychological effects of digital repression, a Kuwait mission, the unfair UAE84 Trial, our Annual Report, and “How Europe is arming murderous Middle East regimes”.
We also organised and participated in side events and carried out other advocacy at the UN Human Rights Council’s three annual sessions. We held the highly-valued fourth MENA Regional Consultation with 33 HRDs and WHRDs from 17 countries in the MENA region with four UN experts. GCHR provided grants to partners for capacity building and research, facilitated emergency support and grants to W/HRDs at risk, and worked with UN and EU protection mechanisms, including ProtectDefender.EU and the EU Temporary Relocation Programme.
We marked important UN days such as International Women’s Day, World Press Freedom Day, the International Day to End Impunity, and International Women Human Rights Defenders Day.
Once again, GCHR, with the support of 28 partners, held the successful online human rights cultural event, the Alternative Human Rights Expo III, on 27 November 2024. This event featured HRDs, WHRDs, activists, artists, musicians and poets from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.
GCHR continued to shed light on the harmful practices of sportswashing and greenwashing that many countries across the region engage in as an attempt to improve their image on the global stage. For example, GCHR raised its concerns about the Internet Governance Forum being held in Saudi Arabia, and the award of the 2023 FIFA men’s world cup to Saudi Arabia despite the many, frequent human rights violations that occur there.
INTRODUCTION
This annual report covers the period between 01 January 2024 and 31 December 2024. It summarises GCHR’s activities advocating on behalf of HRDs, activists, academics, journalists, protesters and citizens so that they can exercise their human rights peacefully and free from oppression. In addition to documenting our advocacy efforts and activities, the report also covers the ways in which we have helped to strengthen the capacity of HRDs and other civil society actors working to peacefully promote and protect human rights throughout the region and neighbouring countries.
At the outset, GCHR wishes to recognise and pay tribute to its local, regional and international partners, including dozens of partner NGOs and various UN experts, with whom it has continued to enjoy fruitful relationships in our mutual work to amplify and support the work of HRDs and civil society actors across the Gulf region and neighbouring countries.
Part I of this report summarises GCHR’s thematic and country-specific campaigns, advocacy before international organisations such as the United Nations and legal advocacy. Part II highlights the various thematic and country reports published by GCHR over the past year. Part III summarises the practical support GCHR has provided to HRDs and civil society actors throughout 2024. Part IV provides “snapshots” of the human rights situation in each of the countries we work in across the Gulf region and the report concludes with a regional human rights overview in Part V and recommendations for the future in Part VI.
To read the full report in English, please click here to download it