The wife of British businessman Ahmed Al-Doush has described the emotional toll of his nearly two-year imprisonment in Saudi Arabia, saying their four children continue to ask when their father will return home.
Al-Doush, a 44-year-old business analyst from Manchester, has been detained in Saudi Arabia since August 2024 after being arrested at Riyadh airport while travelling home with his pregnant wife and three children. His family had been visiting his wife’s brother in the country.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International is campaigning for his release and says he was convicted following an unfair trial on charges that violate his right to freedom of expression.
Al-Doush’s wife, Amaher Nour, said she avoids telling their children that their father is in prison because she believes they are old enough to associate imprisonment with wrongdoing. Instead, she tells them he is away working.
Nour said Al-Doush’s condition has deteriorated during his detention. According to her, his voice has sometimes become difficult to recognise and he has appeared tired and confused during phone calls. She also said he has undertaken several hunger strikes and that the family has not always been informed about them.
Al-Doush has not yet met his youngest child, according to his family.
His case has been raised with Saudi authorities by the UK Foreign Office. British government travel guidance warns that public statements considered disruptive to public order can be illegal in Saudi Arabia and advises visitors against commenting publicly on the royal family, authorities or matters that could be interpreted as political.
The guidance also warns that social media posts made years earlier or outside Saudi Arabia may be considered by Saudi authorities, with punishment potentially including lengthy prison sentences.
Al-Doush’s UK legal team says neither his family, lawyers nor the British government has been given access to the legal documents relating to his case, including the judgment. As a result, they say they do not have a complete understanding of the charges or the evidence behind his conviction.
His London-based lawyer, Haydee Dijkstal, said Al-Doush appears to have been questioned about several tweets posted in 2018 and later deleted. The posts reportedly concerned Sudan, where he was born, as well as his connection to the son of a Saudi dissident living in the UK.
Dijkstal said Al-Doush spent five months in detention without being charged and was questioned without a lawyer before being sentenced in May 2025. Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court reportedly sentenced him to 10 years in prison for using social media to spread what authorities described as false information against the government.
Human rights organisations have criticised the court, saying it has been used to prosecute political expression through broadly worded counterterrorism and cybercrime laws.
Al-Doush’s sentence was reduced to five years on appeal in April, but his wife says his physical and mental health continue to worsen.
Amnesty International says he is being held in a cell designed for six to eight people that currently accommodates about 16 prisoners. The organisation also says his access to telephone calls has frequently been restricted and that he has been warned against discussing his health or legal case.
Eilidh Macpherson of Amnesty International UK called for Al-Doush to be released, saying his family in Britain urgently needs him and that his detention has had a profound impact on his four children.
The organisation has also urged governments to update their travel advice for Saudi Arabia so that visitors understand that previous social media activity could potentially expose them to legal risks.
The Saudi embassy in London did not respond to a BBC request for comment on the case.
Saudi authorities have previously told the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that there was evidence Al-Doush had committed terrorist offences, including supporting what they described as terrorist ideology.
However, independent experts from the UN Working Group concluded in March that his detention was arbitrary under international law. They cited multiple alleged violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and called for his release.
The experts said the Saudi government had not provided sufficient information to demonstrate that Al-Doush posed a violent threat to the community that would make his detention necessary.
In May, Nour made a direct appeal to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for humanitarian clemency for her husband. She said his absence had created a void in the family and that their children struggled to understand why he was no longer home for bedtime or taking them out as he once did.
Nour said she has even hidden Al-Doush’s clothes so the children are not constantly reminded of his absence. She is now calling on the UK government to recognise the UN finding that his detention was arbitrary and to support his release on humanitarian grounds so he can return to his family.
