The world’s most-watched sporting event is heading to a country where one of its most prominent human rights defenders has just been condemned to spend a quarter of a century behind bars for his peaceful activism.
As global football begins to rally around Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, Mohammed al‑Bajadi sits in Buraydah Prison, retried and sentenced to an additional 25 years in a process that UN experts and rights groups say flagrantly violates basic fair trial guarantees. The dissonance is stark: can a sport that markets itself as a force for unity and human dignity celebrate in a country accused of systematically crushing dissent?
Background on Mohammed al‑Bajadi’s case
Mohammed al‑Bajadi is a veteran Saudi human rights defender and a founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), a group that has long documented arbitrary detentions and called for constitutional reforms. He was first prosecuted more than a decade ago, when the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh, a tribunal nominally dedicated to terrorism cases, sentenced him in 2012 to eight years in prison, with four years suspended, and a subsequent five‑year travel ban.
The charges laid against him—helping to establish an unlicensed organization, “harming the image of the state” through the media, calling on families of political detainees to protest, questioning judicial independence, and possessing “banned” books—were rooted entirely in peaceful expression and association.
In 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued Opinion No. 38/2015, finding that his detention was arbitrary because it stemmed from the legitimate exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and peaceful association, and formed part of a broader pattern of persecution of activists in Saudi Arabia.
He nonetheless remained in prison under successive sentences, and although his latest term expired in April 2023, he was not released and continued to be held in Buraydah Prison. In mid‑2025, instead of being freed, he was brought back before the SCC in a retrial whose details remain opaque; on 27 October 2025 he was handed a new 25‑year prison term, with no access to a lawyer and with the charges kept from public view.
UN special procedure mandate holders and human rights organizations have warned that this retrial raises serious concerns about respect for due process and fair trial rights. The lack of legal representation, secrecy surrounding charges, use of a terrorism court, and the fact that he was retried after already serving his sentence all point, in the view of international observers, to a politically motivated process designed to extend his punishment and deter others.
Because his imprisonment is linked to peaceful advocacy and occurs in a context where UN bodies have already deemed his earlier detention arbitrary, many observers consider his renewed incarceration to fall squarely within the definition of arbitrary detention under international law.
A broader pattern of repression and legal opacity
Al‑Bajadi’s case is not an anomaly but part of a long‑documented pattern in which Saudi authorities use broad counter‑terrorism and security laws to stifle dissent. UN experts have repeatedly criticized the kingdom’s counter‑terror legislation as “unacceptably broad” and vague, warning that it enables the criminalization of peaceful expression, association, and assembly under the guise of combating terrorism.
Religious figures, writers, journalists, academics, women’s rights campaigners, and members of ACPRA have all been targeted in waves of arrests and prosecutions that UN rapporteurs describe as “widespread and systematic.”
International rights groups such as ALQST, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have documented scores of cases in which activists and critics face long prison terms after proceedings in the SCC that lack basic judicial transparency.
Reported concerns include denial of access to lawyers, secret or last‑minute charges, reliance on coerced confessions, and trials held largely behind closed doors, making independent scrutiny extremely difficult. Despite Saudi Arabia’s election to the UN Human Rights Council in 2016 and official pledges to uphold international human rights commitments, UN experts have noted that the government has “ignored repeated calls” to halt violations and remedy arbitrary detentions.
Al‑Bajadi’s retrial after the expiry of his sentence underscores the depth of this pattern. His case highlights a justice system in which counter‑terrorism mechanisms appear to function as tools of political control, and where judicial independence is widely questioned by international observers. For many, his fate has become emblematic of the risks faced by anyone in Saudi Arabia who dares to critique state policies or demand accountability.
Sportswashing and the 2034 FIFA World Cup
The decision to award Saudi Arabia the 2034 FIFA World Cup must be understood against this backdrop of persistent rights concerns. “Sportswashing” is the term increasingly used to describe how states with poor human rights records invest heavily in high‑profile sporting events to burnish their image, divert attention from abuses, and cultivate soft power.
By hosting mega‑events such as global football tournaments, Formula 1 races, or boxing matches, governments gain flattering media coverage, streams of celebrity visitors, and a powerful narrative of modernity and openness that can overshadow ongoing repression.
In the case of Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup, Amnesty International and the Sports & Rights Alliance have warned that the tournament poses “severe and likely” human rights risks for workers, critics, women, and LGBT people unless major reforms are enacted.
A human rights assessment commissioned for the bid and published by FIFA, produced by the Riyadh‑based office of the law firm Clifford Chance, has been criticized as a “whitewash” for omitting extensive, well‑documented abuses and downplaying risks. FIFA nonetheless gave Saudi Arabia a “medium” human rights risk rating, a judgment that rights advocates say fails to account for the scale of potential exploitation, discrimination, and repression over the coming decade.
Human Rights Watch has also argued that FIFA is breaching its own human rights rules by effectively fast‑tracking Saudi Arabia’s selection without robust due diligence or meaningful consultation with affected stakeholders.
Critics warn that, without enforceable conditions, the World Cup could entrench impunity: infrastructure will be built by vulnerable migrant workers, critical voices like al‑Bajadi will remain silenced, and the spectacle of football will project a narrative of normalcy. In that sense, the tournament risks becoming a textbook case of sportswashing, where the glow of global sport helps to normalize rather than challenge ongoing repression.
Sportswashing and al‑Bajadi’s symbolism
Linking al‑Bajadi’s case to 2034 is not a rhetorical leap; it captures the central tension between image and reality. On one side stands a state investing heavily in stadiums, tourism projects, and global partnerships to present itself as a dynamic, reforming hub; on the other stands a human rights defender retried by a terrorism court and locked away for 25 years for peaceful activities.
The risk is that, by 2034, the world will celebrate the transformation of Saudi Arabia’s skyline while activists who helped expose past abuses remain invisible behind concrete walls.
Moral and ethical responsibility of global football
These realities pose pressing ethical questions for FIFA and the broader football community. FIFA has adopted human rights policies that, on paper, require it to conduct due diligence and prevent or mitigate abuses linked to its tournaments, yet the handling of the 2034 process suggests those standards are being applied selectively. If the organization can overlook both documented patterns of arbitrary detention and specific emblematic cases like al‑Bajadi’s, critics argue that its human rights commitments risk becoming purely rhetorical.
A key question is whether hosting rights should be conditioned on measurable human rights improvements. In practical terms, this might mean requiring the release of imprisoned human rights defenders, reforms to counter‑terrorism laws to eliminate their use against peaceful critics, protections for migrant workers in line with international standards, and guarantees of non‑discrimination for women and LGBT people.
Failure to make such conditions explicit and enforceable suggests that commercial and geopolitical considerations continue to outweigh human rights concerns within global football governance.
History offers examples of sporting controversies that illuminate what is at stake. Boycotts and campaigns during the apartheid era in South Africa, as well as more recent debates around events in Russia and Qatar, show that sport can either challenge or legitimize repressive systems depending on how institutions, athletes, and fans respond. These precedents do not map perfectly onto the Saudi context, but they underscore that sport is never “neutral”: decisions about where and how to host events carry moral weight.
Why a boycott should be on the table
In light of al‑Bajadi’s case and the broader pattern of repression, there is a strong argument that civil society groups, fans, sponsors, and even players should consider some form of boycott of the 2034 World Cup unless meaningful reforms occur. A boycott, understood here as a peaceful, nonviolent refusal to participate in or legitimize the event under current conditions, can serve as a tool of pressure aimed at accountability rather than an end in itself.
For civil society organizations, this could mean coordinated campaigns urging FIFA to set clear human rights benchmarks and threatening to call for a withdrawal of participation if those benchmarks are not met. Sponsors, who provide crucial financial backing, can commit to linking their support to specific reforms, signaling that association with the tournament carries reputational risk if prisoners of conscience remain behind bars.
Fans and players, whose engagement gives the World Cup its meaning, can demand transparency about the situation of activists like al‑Bajadi and commit to symbolic or material acts of refusal if the status quo persists.
Addressing engagement vs isolation
One of the most common counterarguments is that engagement is preferable to isolation: that bringing the World Cup to Saudi Arabia will open the country, expose it to global scrutiny, and create space for change. There is some historical precedent for sport catalyzing debate, and the presence of journalists, NGOs, and foreign fans could indeed shine a light on conditions in the kingdom. Proponents argue that dialogue and cultural exchange are more constructive than shunning.
Yet engagement without leverage risks becoming complicity. If the tournament proceeds without concrete human rights conditions, the government can reap the soft‑power benefits while maintaining or even intensifying repression, secure in the knowledge that major institutions will not impose meaningful consequences. In that scenario, engagement functions not as a pathway to reform but as a legitimizing veneer.
A conditional approach that keeps the possibility of boycott on the table attempts to reconcile these positions. It treats the World Cup as a bargaining chip: participation is offered in exchange for verifiable steps such as releasing prisoners of conscience, reforming abusive laws, and ensuring protections for workers and marginalized groups.
If those steps are not taken, then moving ahead as if nothing is wrong would signal that the global football community is prepared to ignore the plight of people like al‑Bajadi for the sake of spectacle.
Football, freedom, and the cost of silence
As preparations for 2034 accelerate, the image of jubilant crowds in new Saudi stadiums will compete with the unseen reality of those imprisoned for demanding the basic rights many fans take for granted. Mohammed al‑Bajadi’s 25‑year sentence is a stark reminder that, behind the branding of “vision” and “reform,” peaceful critics still pay an extraordinary price for their courage.
The question facing FIFA, national federations, sponsors, and supporters is whether global football can truly claim to unite the world while turning away from that reality.
Sporting prestige should not come at the expense of fundamental rights. If the World Cup is to be more than a commercial product—if it is to embody any meaningful commitment to human dignity—then the fate of prisoners of conscience must matter as much as the condition of stadium roofs or training facilities.
The case of Mohammed al‑Bajadi poses this challenge in its most human terms: the beautiful game must decide whether it is prepared to celebrate in a place where those who speak for justice are silenced, or whether it will use its immense influence to insist that no trophy is worth the cost of another 25 years behind bars for a peaceful defender.