The campaign group Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned the arrest by Saudi authorities of some 30 clerics, intellectuals and activists this week as a "coordinated crackdown on dissent", and Amnesty International echoed the sentiment.

Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned a "coordinated crackdown on dissent" by Saudi authorities who have arrested dozens of people including prominent clerics in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Saudi Arabia’s school religious studies curriculum contains hateful and incendiary language toward religions and Islamic traditions that do not adhere to its interpretation of Sunni Islam, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch accused the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen of war crimes on Tuesday, saying its air strikes killed 39 civilians including 26 children in two months.

Gulf governments have sustained their campaigns to silence peaceful critics during the first half of 2017, stated Human Rights Watch, updating an interactive website, created in November 2016, featuring targeted human rights activists.

Saudi Arabia must clarify whether they have imposed movement restrictions on former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, saying the kingdom should end all arbitrary travel bans and detentions of Saudi citizens.

Human Rights Watch launched a feature entitled “140 Characters” that presents the profiles of 140 prominent Bahraini, Kuwaiti, Omani, Qatari, Saudi, and Emirati social and political rights activists and dissidents, and their struggles to resist government efforts to silence them.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the verdict issued today by a Bahraini court, sentencing prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, to two years in prison.

Bahraini authorities on June 4, 2017, ordered the immediate indefinite suspension of Al Wasat, the country’s only independent newspaper, said Human Rights Watch.

Saudi Arabia should immediately quash the death sentences of 14 members of the Shia community for protest-related crimes, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch condemned the Diraz security operation conducted by Bahraini regime forces Tuesday morning (May 23, 2017), and described it as a crackdown on freedom of expression.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized President of the Asian Football Confederation, Bahrain’s Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, for voting against a Palestinian proposal to halt Israeli football matches on occupied territories.

The United Nations Committee against Torture on Friday called on Bahrain to release prominent activist Nabeel Rajab from more than nine months of solitary confinement and investigate widespread allegations of ill-treatment and torture of detainees.

Bahraini authorities denied an entry visa to a Human Rights Watch researcher. HRW said that this move proves that “Bahrain has yet again shown its intolerance of human rights advocates,” according to Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

A Human Rights Watch staffer said Wednesday he was barred from entering Bahrain for the annual Fifa congress in the Gulf state, which restricts access to foreign activists and journalists.

A Human Rights Watch activist said Wednesday that Bahrain has barred him from entering the tiny island nation for the annual FIFA congress as the kingdom continues a wide-scale crackdown on dissent.

Human Rights Watch Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir said that the Bahraini authorities prevented him from entering the country as he was intending to take part in pressuring on FIFA Congress.

Bahraini government's representative in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Dosari, said that his country will carefully study all the recommendations contained in the report, which amounted to 175 recommendations.

​Human Rights Watch says prominent Bahraini human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, is suffering from health problems that have developed or deteriorated during more than 10 months​ ​of​ ​arbitrary​ ​detention.

Human Rights Watch demanded the United Arab Emirates to immediately release leading human rights activist Ahmad Mansoor who was arrested in the early morning hours of March 20, 2017.