Migrant rights activist: “It is not the presence of a Saudi dissident in Bulgaria, but the infiltration of Saudi influence in the Bulgarian security services that poses a threat to the country”
Statement by an activist from the Solidarity with Migrants – Bulgaria movement
This speech was made during a protest in solidarity with Saudi dissident Abdulrahman al-Khalidi, which took place on 5 April 2025, in Sofia. The protest was organized by the Migrant Solidarity Bulgaria movement.
We are extremely grateful that you are here today at this protest against the outrageous crimes committed by the Bulgarian state against our friend, dissident, and human rights activist Abdulrahman al-Khalidi. He is originally from Saudi Arabia and has been detained for more than 3.5 years, without trial or charges, in a so-called “special home for temporary accommodation of foreigners,” which is effectively functioning as a prison. He lives in conditions that are considered a form of torture under international humanitarian standards.
Abdulrahman fled his native Saudi Arabia in 2013 during a wave of arrests of peaceful civil activists and protesters against the Saudi regime – people like himself. He travelled through a number of countries before settling in Istanbul. But in 2020, his passport expired. Following the internationally publicized murder of Saudi journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, our friend Abdulrahman decided that instead of visiting the same consulate and risking being killed, he would come to Bulgaria to renew his passport in a European country and apply for international protection. After crossing the Bulgarian-Turkish border, he was immediately detained and imprisoned without charge, for unexplained reasons, to this day. Over the past 3.5 years, he has filed numerous lawsuits against various institutions for his release and to obtain refugee status. Abdulrahman has been tortured and beaten by Ministry of Interior officials. He has attempted suicide several times. He has been denied medical assistance. At the end of 2024, he miraculously survived a 104-day hunger strike, which he undertook to protest the State Agency for Refugees’ latest refusal to release him, despite the Administrative Court’s final decision on his release on 19 January 2024.
In recent days, on 26 March 2025, last week, the Sofia City Administrative Court ordered his immediate release for the second time, this time definitively and as a final decision. Instead of complying with the court decision, the State Agency for National Security arbitrarily and unlawfully changed the legal basis for Abdurahman’s detention from “detention of an asylum seeker” to “detention for the purpose of expulsion,” in gross violation of international refugee law. The State Agency for National Security claims that in this way they are beginning to enforce their order for his expulsion back to Saudi Arabia, even though under Bulgarian and international refugee law it is currently UNLAWFUL to take action on this order while his case for international protection is still pending before the Supreme Administrative Court. In doing so, the state administration is violating its own laws by failing to comply with court decisions, and this sets a dangerous precedent for every Bulgarian citizen.
We have no guarantee that the Bulgarian state will not violate Abdurahman’s rights again by continuing to take action to enforce his expulsion order. We warn that at any moment they could break into his cell in the detention center and take him away, which would mean certain death for him.
There have already been such cases—in 2016, the Bulgarian state quietly handed over Abdullah Büyük, an opponent of the Turkish regime, to the Turkish authorities after he was denied political asylum without a trial and without the possibility of appeal. Investigative journalists claim that the Bulgarian government and former chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov helped Turkey in the persecution of Buyuk, thereby violating international conventions and legal principles.
This story repeated itself in 2020 when democratic Turkish activist Selahattin Ürün was handed over to Turkey despite pending legal proceedings in Bulgaria against the State Agency for Refugees’ refusal to grant him asylum. Two years after Bulgaria returned him to Turkey, he escaped again and was granted refugee status in Poland. His life was saved.
These two precedents, as well as Abdurahman’s own account that during his detention in Busmantsi he was interrogated in person by Bulgarian officials in the presence of representatives of the Saudi services, lead us to the bitter conclusion that Bulgaria is a servile servant of the dictatorships of the Middle East. The infiltration of Saudi influence in the State Agency for National Security and the Ministry of Interior is the real threat to Bulgarian national security, not the presence of a peaceful human rights activist on our territory.
Given the above two precedents of non-compliance with international legal norms and the expulsion of these two dissidents while their asylum proceedings are ongoing, we are sounding the alarm about the imminent danger that this situation could repeat itself at any moment, which would cost the life of our friend, a fighter for human rights and justice, who has not been convicted of any crime and against whom there are no charges other than the flimsy accusations by the State Agency for National Security that he poses a threat to Bulgaria’s national security because, note, he lived on the same street as Islamists in Istanbul.
There is ample evidence that the Saudi regime is ready to behead our friend as soon as he sets foot on his native soil in 2024. The Saudis have broken all records for carrying out death sentences since statistics have been kept, executing at least 309 of their own and foreign citizens, at least 15% of whom were charged with terrorism – a charge that can be levelled at anyone who participates in a peaceful public protest – just like us, the people here. The Saudi dictatorship is ready to kill our friend Abdulrahman the moment he returns to its territory. In the constitutional crisis we find ourselves in, when even the State Agency for National Security (DANS) does not comply with the laws designed to protect the lives of dissidents like Abdulrahman, the burden of fighting for his life falls on us—the active civil society—and we, his friends, will not allow him to be killed.
We urge you to support us—we urgently need a critical mass to draw attention to the crimes of the State Agency for National Security and the Ministry of the Interior. Visibility of everything that is happening is essential in his case to prevent further escalation of the violation of his rights.
It is up to all of us to stand up against these scandalous violations of fundamental democratic rights such as the right to protest and the right to freedom of speech in foreign dictatorships, so that they do not continue to infiltrate ours. Even today, as I was preparing this speech, I asked myself: am I next? How many more years will it be safe for me to speak out about the crimes of our state before they start arresting us for using our voices, just as they do in Turkey and Saudi Arabia?
Coretta Scott King, known as a human rights activist, leader of the civil rights movement in the US, and wife of Martin Luther King, said: “The struggle is an endless process. Freedom is never achieved, it is won and earned by each successive generation.”
Saving an innocent human life means everything. We call on all media representatives present to assist us in publicizing this scandalous case as widely as possible. We urge all protesters to continue to support us and take to the streets with us again, to continue reading about this case and talking about it, to follow Abdurahman himself, as well as us, the activists who support him, on social media. Please contact us if you have any questions or suggestions for support. Thank you.
Photo: (source: Migrant Solidarity Bulgaria)
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