A week ago, a bombastic show was held in Riyadh about the boxing match of the century – and less than 30 minutes away by car, a women’s rights activist was imprisoned and abused. Saudi Arabia continues to try to whitewash its reputation with the glitter of sports, while cruelty reigns in the country.
It’s glittering again. The spotlights are shining brightly, Riyadh is presenting itself in pompous splendor. Last weekend, the eyes of the sporting world were on Saudi Arabia when Oleksandr Usyk crowned himself the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion by punching Tyson Fury’s nose bloody in the world championship fight that was proclaimed the “fight of the century.”
Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is not going to miss the opportunity to drive up in his blue Ferrari and sit in the front row next to British boxer Anthony Joshua. Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard, now manager of the Saudi club Al-Ettifaq, and Neymar, who plays in the Saudi league, are also there. Former world champion Wladimir Klitschko is travelling especially from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the 29-year-old Manahel al-Otaibi behind bars. In solitary confinement in al-Malaz prison in Riyadh with a broken leg after being brutally beaten in custody, and without access to medical care. Less than 30 minutes’ drive from the Kingdom Arena, the venue of the bombastic boxing glitz event.
Al-Otaibi is kidnapped and abused
Al-Otaibi is a Saudi fitness coach and women’s rights activist who was sentenced to 11 years in prison just one month before the World Cup match. She is “forcibly disappeared” from November 2023 to April 2024 amid a tightening crackdown by the country’s rulers on online dissent until she can reconnect with her family and tell of the abuse. Al-Otaibi is initially charged with violating the Cybercrime Law for promoting women’s rights in her tweets and posting photos of herself in the mall without an abaya (a traditional, loose-fitting, long-sleeved robe) on Snapchat.
She is then sentenced to 11 years in prison for “terrorist offences” in a secret trial at the Saudi Special Criminal Court (SCC) – which human rights groups say is the terrorism tribunal set up to prosecute peaceful dissidents and is notorious for violating fair trial standards and handing down particularly harsh sentences.
“Manahel al-Otaibi’s conviction and eleven-year prison sentence is a horrific and cruel injustice. Since her arrest, the Saudi authorities have subjected her to relentless abuse,” Ellen Wesemüller, spokesperson for Amnesty International in Germany, told ntv.de. “Not least with this conviction, the Saudi authorities have exposed the hypocrisy of their much-vaunted reforms in the area of women’s rights in recent years and demonstrated their iron determination to silence peaceful expressions of opinion.”
Human rights groups have repeatedly called for al-Otaibi’s release. To no avail. Her sister Fawzia faces similar charges in 2022, but flees the kingdom the same year after being summoned for questioning. Dozens of people, many of them women, have been detained and even sentenced in Saudi Arabia in connection with social media posts over the past two years. sentenced to death.
Saudi Vision 2030 and Sportswashing
“In July 2023, the Special Criminal Court for Terrorist Offenses sentenced 54-year-old retired teacher Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi to death solely for his peaceful online activities on X and YouTube,” explains expert Wesemüller. Vague cybercrime laws are also used to crack down on people suspected of having sexual relations outside of marriage.
While Manahel al-Otaibi is suffering, the worldwide boxing reports are almost exclusively about the historic fight, the huge show, the bloody noses. The kingdom’s human rights violations are of no interest. Saudi Arabia’s plan has worked once again: using sport, be it boxing, football, golf or tennis, to polish its own image and distract from the miserable human rights record and crimes in the country. This is called sportswashing. “You have to understand Saudi Arabia’s self-portrayal for what it is: marketing for its own cause, not a truthful description of reality,” says Wesemüller.
In boxing, Saudi officials have found a tool where money speaks even louder than in most other sports, and boxers and promoters are happy to accept the high fees (usually at least double compared to fights in the rest of the world). The “fight of the century” is organized by the General Entertainment Authority (GEA) of the Saudi government. The driving force behind the GEA is Turki al-Sheikh. He is an advisor to the royal court – and sits in the front row at the glittering fight right next to Ronaldo, whom he greets with a warm hug.
Al-Sheikh has been tasked with developing the sports and entertainment sector since 2016 as part of an ambitious program of economic diversification and social liberalization led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The 38-year-old “MBS” is one of the most powerful men on the planet as the de facto ruler and has also been the country’s prime minister since 2022. He is considered cunning, power-hungry, relentless – and clever. As early as 2011, MBS, who loved the strategy computer game “Age of Empires” and stories of Alexander the Great as a child, was already working on his own strategies with advisors from the fields of economics and law, which later became Vision 2030: the plan to open up and modernize Saudi Arabia to the West and to make the economy independent of oil within just two decades.
“Mortar shells used against people”
While events like last weekend’s boxing match brightly light up the skies over Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other organizations criticize the absolute monarchy for a series of massive human rights violations and crimes. These include war crimes in Yemen, the killing of Ethiopian asylum seekers at the country’s borders (if these killings were committed as part of Saudi government policy, they would be a crime against humanity), the harsh suppression of free and peaceful expression, the imprisonment of dissidents and women’s rights activists, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Regarding the Ethiopians killed – who are being killed while Ronaldo, Neymar and Co. are signing their mega-contracts in the Saudi league, the Gulf world is practically being bought up by the kingdom and several huge boxing spectacles are taking place in the country – Wesemüller of Amnesty says: “Human Rights Watch documented that the border guards used mortar shells against the people, among other things, and shot some of them at close range, including minors. According to the report, hundreds, if not thousands, of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers were killed at the border with Yemen between March 2022 and June 2023.”
The rampant execution of the death penalty (among other things, 81 people will be executed in a single day in 2022), even for those imprisoned for non-violent crimes, has also been criticized. “With 172 executions in 2023, Saudi Arabia, along with China and Iran, also leads the list of countries that have carried out the most death sentences,” says Wesemüller. “Courts have imposed the death sentences after grossly unfair proceedings, including against people who were still minors at the time of the alleged crime – even though the country had promised to abolish the punishment for minors.”
“Saudi Arabia’s promises of reform are a lie”
Glitzy events like the Fury-Usyk fight are intended to distract from these crimes and promote Saudi Arabia as a “sports center.” The kingdom’s rulers also hope that hosting major events will encourage wealthy Saudis to spend a larger portion of their income in their own country. The 20 percent of the 32.2 million Saudi citizens who live in poverty – many of them women or members of households headed by women – cannot take part in the glitzy football or boxing events anyway.
Furthermore, the kingdom is to be made a global tourist destination, another source of income for the rulers. And this plan is also working. Officials reject accusations from human rights organizations, but in September 2023 MBS comments for the first time on the sportswashing allegations. In an English-language interview with US broadcaster Fox News recorded in Saudi Arabia, he says that he “doesn’t care” about the allegations against his country: “If sportswashing increases my gross domestic product by one percent, then I will continue to do sportswashing.” Part of economic diversification is tourism, the crown prince explains: “And if you want to develop tourism, part of it is culture, part of it is the sports sector.”
Officially, part of Vision 2030 is that the country opens up and grants women more rights. The reality is different. Of course, women without headscarves are present at the glittery boxing match and Western rap music is played, but bin Salman’s rule is a dark time for human rights in Saudi Arabia. “To put it very clearly: Saudi Arabia’s promises of reform are a lie,” says Wesemüller of Amnesty International.
The verdict of Manahel al-Otaibi, for example, is “in direct contradiction to the narrative of reforms and the empowerment of women spread by the Saudi authorities.” MBS claims that women can dress as they want, “but that is simply not the truth.” With al-Otaibi’s arrest and the harsh punishment, “the authorities have once again made clear the arbitrariness and inconsistency of their so-called reforms and their continued determination to control women in Saudi Arabia,” the expert continued.
Maybe al-Otaibi would have watched the mega-fight
This makes Riyadh’s major purchase of women’s tennis, which was officially announced last week, all the more perfidious. Saudi Arabia’s assumption of the UN presidency for the advancement of women from 2025 is also a slap in the face of al-Otaibi and other oppressed and imprisoned women in the kingdom. “Women continue to be discriminated against by law and in everyday life,” says Wesemüller. “Since 2022, Saudi Arabia has had a civil status law that, unfortunately contrary to official statements, perpetuates gender-based discrimination in all areas of family life, from marriage and divorce to child custody and inheritance. It also does not protect women from gender-based violence.”
Saudi Arabia is “the leading country in the world right now” for boxing, Fury told the Financial Times before his world championship fight. “They are the biggest players in the game and I don’t think we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming,” Fury said. “They have a huge, huge vision for this sport.” After their fight, both boxers thanked the kingdom’s rulers in the ring.
As a fitness coach, Manahel al-Otaibi might have liked to watch the boxing match on television. But like many other women and men, she is suffering behind bars because she is fighting for her human rights.