The reality behind a fight in Saudi Arabia: human rights abuses shadow Fury’s visit

The heat and dust rise early in Riyadh. As the temperature climbs towards 34C the construction workers drive their pneumatic drills and diggers into chasms of bleached earth while the foundations for new hotels are laid. But it’s hard to consider the modernisation of Saudi, and its supposed representation by Saturday night’s bizarre fight between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou, when painful words echo from a few days ago.

Fury, the world heavyweight boxing champion, and Ngannou, the mixed martial arts heavyweight title holder for the UFC until last January, meet in a crossover bout meant to showcase the best of both disciplines and the uplifting transformation of Saudi into a gleaming new state where sporting icons beam down at the changes they are apparently helping to spread.

Boxing began this sporting embrace of Saudi and, ever since Anthony Joshua regained his world heavyweight titles from Andy Ruiz Jr on the outskirts of Riyadh in December 2019, this money-driven relationship has deepened. Golf and football followed, while cricket wonders what might happen when a proposed new Saudi league threatens to transcend the Indian Premier League billions.

It’s difficult to be indignant about just sporting greed, or even the heavily hyped Battle of the Baddest between Fury and Ngannou, when something terrible remains lodged in the heart of Saudi society. And so the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo gave Ngannou a watch worth £87,000 when they recently met in Riyadh does not matter much amid the darker reality of Saudi.

On Monday I spoke to Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi Arabian woman in exile in Belgium. Her sister Loujain al-Hathloul is the most internationally renowned female activist in Saudi Arabia. Loujain, 34, led the protests against the state ban which prevented women from being able to drive a car. She was arrested numerous times before, in March 2018, her family claim she was kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates and brought back to Saudi Arabia, where she was jailed for 1,001 days until her release in February 2021.

Tyson Fury and his team promote his fight with Francis Ngannou. Photograph: Ahmed Yosri/Reuters

Loujain went on hunger strike to protest against being denied contact with her family. After her parents were finally allowed to visit her in prison they alleged that Loujain suffered beatings, electric shocks and waterboarding while being threatened with rape and murder. She was nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2019 and 2020 but Loujain’s personal plight remains distressing.

The Saudi state lifted the ban on women being able to drive in June 2018 but Loujain and Lina claim that far more serious forms of repression have escalated.

“It’s very difficult,” Lina al-Hathloul said as she reveals that her sister’s five-year travel ban and being barred from talking in public have been upheld again. “She is back on an illegal travel ban, as is my family. It’s very stressful because this means you are back on their radar and there’s that potential they are arrested without trial. Loujain is always optimistic and hopeful. But it’s not easy knowing she’s under constant surveillance, banned from talking and can’t travel. She’s isolated while our family also have this travel ban. Why this collective punishment?”

Lina continues to campaign against the guardianship policy which, she says, “created a system by which a woman is not free. She is considered to be a minor and subject to the will of a man until the end of her life.”

In March 2022 the Saudi state passed the Personal Status Law, perpetuating the male guardianship system and codifying expectations that women will obey their husbands. Felix Jakens, from Amnesty UK, tells me: “It makes their financial support conditional on wives submitting to their husband. Women also need the consent of a male guardian to get married. So they’re actually entrenching discrimination against women.”

As Lina explains, her sister started a campaign called I Am My Own Guardian. “Since Mohammed bin Salman came to power many changes have been applauded in the west including the fact that, for example, a woman does not need the prior consent of a male to travel. Ironically, what we’ve seen is that, since the lifting of this law, there’s been an explosion in Saudi women refugees in the west because women are still not safe inside the kingdom. Women flee the country because the fundamentals of male guardianship are still there, including the disobedience law. A male guardian can consider anything as disobedience and get her arrested.”

Lina suggests: “We have entered an era of a police state. We’ve never been a police state before. You had red lines, you had things you couldn’t do, you had repression when it comes to religious matters. But now we’re like Iraq under Saddam.”

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This assertion is supported by Jakens, who says: “The people we have inside Saudi Arabia describe the situation around freedom of expression, and criticism of the regime, as the worst it’s ever been in their lifetimes. It’s more restrictive, more heavily policed and more punitive punishment for anybody who speaks out.”

Jakens adds: “Saudi is opening up and investments in sports and cities and tourism are real. People can now watch boxing and so on. But human rights are being more tightly policed, squeezed and restricted than ever before.

“We’re seeing heavier use of the death penalty. In 2022 they carried out 196 executions, including 81 people executed on a single day. There have been 100 executions in Saudi so far this year, many of those carried out against people who were tortured, didn’t have legal representation and were tried behind closed doors. Many of them were just criticising the government. So this is extreme repression.”

Last month a 54-year-old teacher, Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, received a death sentence for tweeting mild criticism of the authorities to his 10 followers on Twitter. He was not inciting violence or spreading hate. Salma al-Shehab, a Leeds University student, was given a 34-year prison sentence for tweeting about women’s rights.

Salma al-Shehab was jailed for 34 years for tweeting. Photograph: Amnesty International

The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment on the cases mentioned here.

What would Jakens say to Fury? “Firstly, we understand the imperative of a boxer’s career, which is to make money. We don’t tell anybody that they shouldn’t ply their trade in Saudi Arabia. That’s entirely his decision. What we say is: ‘Please listen to what the authorities there are telling you, do some independent research, look at the Amnesty or Human Rights Watch reports and learn about Loujain al-Hathloul, Salma al-Shehab and Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi. If you were prepared to speak about those individuals, that would be incredibly important.’ Tyson Fury’s voice to counter the sportswashing narrative of the Saudi authorities would be incredibly powerful.”

This is unlikely to happen and so does Lina al-Halthoul feel increasing concern for her family in Saudi Arabia? “Absolutely. It’s becoming very heavy. I haven’t seen them since 2018. I was hopeful that after the lifting of the official travel ban they’d be allowed to travel. But now we’re back in another ban and we never know what will happen. It’s very hard.”