Saudi Arabia has courted international attention for decades by commissioning giant events and grand development projects and marketing itself as an emerging venue for global sports, tourism, and culture. But behind the glitter exists a dark reality: a series of human rights abuses, suppression of free expression, and political detentions. The arrest of Yemeni reporter Mujahid Al-Haiqi by Saudi authorities in Jeddah airport after performing the Islamic pilgrimage of Umrah is a reminder why hosting Saudi Arabia with the 2034 FIFA World Cup would be profoundly ill-advised. The incident brings to the fore the gulf between Saudi Arabia’s tightly choreographed appearance of openness and vicious reality for journalists, activists, and common people both inside and outside its borders.
The Detention of Mujahid Al-Haiqi: A Foreboding Message
Saudi authorities detained freelance Yemeni journalist Mujahid Al-Haiqi on August 12, 2025, while trying to exit Saudi Arabia for Egypt. A journalist with independent Yemen-based newspaper Aden Al-Ghad, Al-Haiqi was detained upon completing the sacred Umrah pilgrimage—a journey that is made by millions of Muslims across the globe. The arbitrary detention serves to highlight the precarious situation of journalists in the kingdom.
Relatives of Al-Haiqi, in communication with the Yemen-based press freedom organization Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC), believe that his arrest was linked to his reporting on Yemen’s increasingly unstable Hadramawt governorate. This oil-rich region has been a focal point of geopolitical tensions, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates competing for influence, while journalists covering the unrest have faced waves of intimidation and detentions.
A Broader Pattern of Suppression
Al-Haiqi’s arrest is not an isolated incident. Saudi Arabia’s human rights record has repeatedly drawn criticism from international watchdogs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The kingdom routinely suppresses dissent, censors media, and arbitrarily detains activists, academics, and journalists. High-profile cases, such as the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, have revealed the extent to which the government is willing to silence voices that challenge its narrative.
Even sports reporting has seen zero tolerance for criticism from Saudi authorities. Turkish journalist Kurtulus Demirbas was temporarily held in custody while covering Turkey’s under-19 soccer squad in Saudi Arabia in 2024. This kind of event shows an environment where independent coverage, even of a non-political topic, might result in harassment, detention, or worse.
The Yemen Factor: A Humanitarian Catastrophe
Saudi intervention in Yemen’s civil war is merely a portion of its cruel indifference to human rights. The kingdom has been spearheading a coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government, even though Houthi rebels have Iranian allegiance, since 2015. The resultant military intervention has served to translate into mass suffering among civilians, in terms of large-scale casualties, starvation, and destruction of critical infrastructure. Journalists such as Mujahid Al-Haiqi, who document these facts, come under greater scrutiny and peril while trying to report on the humanitarian crisis.
Granting Saudi Arabia the 2034 FIFA World Cup while it sits squarely at the center of Yemen’s current destruction would be effectively rewarding a state that has been the catalyst for conflict and the erosion of fundamental human rights in a neighboring nation. FIFA, as an organization that wears its heart on its sleeve for fair play, transparency, and global fraternity, faces catastrophic reputational harm by turning a blind eye to such crimes.
The Global Responsibility of FIFA
FIFA has a role to consider the greater implications of awarding World Cup hosting rights. It is stadiums, tourism, and fanfare; it is an international stage that symbolizes fairness, openness, and global cooperation. By hosting the 2034 World Cup, FIFA would be endorsing a regime that buries dissent in systematic fashion and puts journalists at risk.
The detention of Al-Haiqi must be an awakening call. It would be a frightening message to host the World Cup in a state where reporters get arbitrarily detained, civil society is stifled, and neighboring nations are facing humanitarian crises. FIFA has to exercise utmost caution to measure the moral and ethical weight of its actions.
Human Rights Over Sports Spectacle
Opponents to excluding Saudi Arabia from hosting contend that sport can be a force for change, maybe pushing the kingdom to reform. Although contact through sport may occasionally bring for good, the current trend of repression indicates Saudi Arabia’s rulers would never implement real reforms on the basis of a championship of games only. The arrest of journalists such as Mujahid Al-Haiqi, even for religious pilgrimage, indicates that political power is more significant than human rights.
In addition, the World Cup attracts millions of visitors and is followed by global media. It will expose sportsmen, supporters, and reporters to a climate where the freedom of speech is limited and the opposition silenced if it takes place in a nation that has a history of suppressing human rights. The danger is not speculation; it exists in reality.
International Repercussions
Granting Saudi Arabia the World Cup will give other authoritarian governments courage to use sport as a tool of political legitimacy, to the detriment of international human rights norms. It establishes the precedent that human rights violations are less important than investment and infrastructure fantasies. The detention of Mujahid Al-Haiqi is a modern example of the kinds of harm such a precedent would cause. All citizens, activists, or journalists who try to hold the powerful accountable are opposed, even if the act is peaceful, humanitarian, or legal.
A Call for Accountability
Saudi Arabia’s detainment of Yemeni journalist Mujahid Al-Haiqi is but a small sample of the kingdom’s overall systemic abuse that defines the nation. On random detentions, stifling free speech, and apathy towards humanitarian crises throughout the world, the nation demonstrates in too vivid a light that its priorities are not those FIFA encourages to preserve.
For all these reasons, the global community, human rights activists, and sporting bodies need to be principled. Granting Saudi Arabia the 2034 FIFA World Cup would not merely give an international stamp of approval to a regime whose chilling track record, but it would also compromise the security and rights of those attempting to report and attend the tournament.
The arrest of Al-Haiqi must be a wake-up call. International stakeholders need to call for accountability, transparency, and concrete reforms before they can even think about Saudi Arabia hosting a World Cup.