On Sunday, 2 October 2022 the SCC, the court set up to handle terrorist cases, handed down death sentences on Shadli, Ibrahim and Ataullah al-Huwaiti. Shadli al-Huwaiti is the brother of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, shot dead by security forces in April 2020 in his home in Al-Khariba, in the part of Tabuk province earmarked for the Neom project, after he posted videos on social media opposing the displacement of local residents to make way for the project. On 23 May 2022, Shadli went on hunger strike in protest against ill-treatment and being placed in solitary confinement, and after two weeks the Dhahban Prison administration inserted a tube into his stomach to force-feed him, a form of torture.

Ibrahim al-Huwaiti was one of the delegation of local residents who in 2020 met the official commission charged with securing government title to the lands required for the Neom project. Ataullah al-Huwaiti was also seen in several video clips talking about the misery his family and all the other displaced residents were facing as a result of the decision to evict them.1

In June 2020 ALQST made a general appeal to consultancy firms working on the Neom project to speak out against the human rights violations associated with it.

Even before the April 2020 killing of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, other members of the Huwaitat tribe had been arrested for refusing to be evicted from their homes, and others have been arrested since. Some have been sentenced to extraordinary prison terms: Abdullah and Abdulilah al-Huwaiti were each sentenced in August 2022 to 50 years.

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• 1. ALQST's Head of Events Abdullah Aljuraywi comments: "These shocking sentences once again show the Saudi authorities' callous disregard for human rights, and the cruel measures they are prepared to take to punish members of the Huwaitat tribe for legitimately protesting against forced eviction from their homes."