Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent representations he has made to his counterparts in Saudi Arabia on the cases of (a) Manahel al-Otaibi, (b) Salma al-Shehad and (c) Fatima al-Shawarbi.

Saudi Arabia remains a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office human rights priority country, in part due to continued restrictions on freedom of expression. We regularly raise these issues with the Saudi authorities, including through Ministers. The Minister of State for the Middle East and Human Rights, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, raised freedom of expression, including individual cases of concern, with the President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission as recently as 5 July. We continue to monitor all three cases.