Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what reports he has received on Saudi Arabia's use of counter-terrorism laws; and whether such laws are being used legitimately to tackle terrorism or to supress political and religious opposition.

We have been following Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism and terrorism financing legislation issue closely since it was implemented on 31 January 2014. As we noted in our 2014 Human Rights and Democracy, a number of human rights activists have been sentenced in the Specialised Criminal Court, set up under this legislation for security and terrorism cases. We will continue to monitor this issue carefully.