On Thursday, Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia of violating international humanitarian law in Yemen and stepping up arrests and prosecutions of activists seeking reform or voicing peaceful dissent.

In its World Report 2018, which reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries, the rights group reported it had documented 87 unlawful attacks by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, leading to nearly 1,000 civilian deaths in 2017.

The Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States and Britain, has been fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allies. In early 2015, the Houthis ousted former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, an ally of Saudi Arabia who took exile in Riyadh when the war began. The Saudi-led coalition has been trying to roll back the Yemeni Houthi alliance group, which controls most of northern Yemen.

Both the Houthis and the Western-backed coalition have been accused of war crimes. The U.N. has repeatedly reported, however, that the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for most of the civilian casualties.

Human Rights Watch earlier claimed that there have been “no serious investigations” into the atrocities committed in Yemen. In fact, Western allies of Saudi Arabia have blocked multiple U.N. attempts to launch independent inquiries — first at the U.N. in September 2015, and again in September of 2016.

The U.S. has supported the Saudi-led campaign with aerial refueling and targeting assistance without criticizing Saudi Arabia and its allies for repeatedly and unlawfully bombing civilians, committing apparent war crimes.

Through 2017, the Saudi-led coalition continued a military campaign against the Houthi rebel group and their allies, forces loyal to now-deceased former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, that included scores of unlawful airstrikes that killed and wounded thousands of civilians.

As the leader of the nine-nation coalition that began military operations against Houthi-Saleh forces in Yemen on March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia has committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law. As of November, at least 5,295 civilians had been killed and 8,873 wounded, according to the U.N. human rights office, although the actual civilian casualty count is likely much higher.

In 2017, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that airstrikes remained the single largest cause of civilian casualties.

Human Rights Watch documented at least 18 coalition attacks using cluster munitions, which killed or wounded dozens of civilians. Saudi Arabia is not a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the weapon. In December 2016, the coalition announced it would stop using a British-made cluster munition, but in 2017 Human Rights Watch documented the coalition’s use of Brazilian-made cluster munitions.

The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes and says its attacks are directed against Yemeni Houthis and their allies, not civilians.

A spokesperson for the coalition, in a statement responding to the report, said it was “unfair” to blame Saudi Arabia for the humanitarian situation in Yemen, adding that it had established an oversight mechanism which found that the coalition did not target civilians.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given more than $8 billion in aid to Yemen from 2015 until 2017 and on Wednesday deposited $2 billion in the Central Bank of Yemen of the legitimate government, with the aim of boosting the country’s financial and economic situation while bolstering the Yemeni Riyal to improve the people’s living conditions,” the statement said.

However, the conflict exacerbated an existing humanitarian crisis. By 2017, an estimated 17 million Yemenis were unable to meet their food needs, according to the United Nations. The conflict also precipitated an unprecedented cholera outbreak, which by September had killed 2,000 people and was suspected to have infected up to 700,000. The war has largely destroyed Yemen’s heath system.

Mohammad bin Salman’s well-funded image as a reformist falls flat in the face of Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe and scores of activists and political dissidents languishing in Saudi prisons on spurious charges.

HRW researcher condemned U.S. “stonewalling” on use of American weapons in Saudi-led war in Yemen

In earlier reports, Human Rights Watch has criticized the U.S. government for “making excuses” for the atrocities committed by its close ally Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen.

“Despite rising outrage over the bloody civilian toll in Yemen’s war, the United States administration is showing no signs of breaking with — or attempting to check — the actions of its ally Saudi Arabia,” Priyanka Motaparthy, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Thursday.

Since March 2015, a coalition of Middle Eastern countries led by Saudi Arabia and armed and supported by the U.S. and the United Kingdom has brutally bombed Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.

“The U.S. has supported the Saudi-led campaign with aerial refueling and targeting assistance without criticizing Saudi Arabia and its allies for repeatedly and unlawfully bombing civilians, committing apparent war crimes,” Motaparthy wrote.

The Human Rights Watch researcher stressed, “The nature of this support makes the U.S. a party to the armed conflict, and potentially culpable in unlawful strikes.”

Last September, the U.N. Human Rights Council established an international, independent body to carry out comprehensive investigations into abuses in Yemen.

Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck three apartment buildings in Sanaa on Aug. 25, 2017, killing at least 16 civilians, including seven children, and wounding another 17, including eight children. After an international outcry, the coalition admitted to carrying out the attack, but provided no details on the coalition members involved

Freedoms of expression, association and belief

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has rocketed to the pinnacle of power in Saudi Arabia, pushing a reform agenda called Vision 2030 aimed at weaning the country off oil and introducing social changes.

Last week, women were allowed to attend a men’s soccer match in stadiums for the first time. This week, women-focused motorshows opened in Jeddah and Riyadh and a decades-long ban on screening films in the conservative kingdom was lifted.

Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said, Saudi authorities continued their arbitrary arrests, trials, and convictions of peaceful dissidents. Dozens of human rights defenders and activists continued to serve long prison sentences for criticizing authorities or advocating political and rights reforms. Authorities continued to discriminate against women and religious minorities.

It began on September 10, when Saudi authorities carried out a wave of arrests of clerics and others in what appeared to be a coordinated crackdown on dissent.

Saudi Arabia continued to repress pro-reform activists and peaceful dissidents. In early 2017, authorities arrested several human rights activists and put them on trial in the country’s notorious Specialized Criminal Court, the country’s counterterrorism tribunal, on charges solely related to their human rights work. Saudi Arabia continues to use 2014 counterterrorism regulations to suppress political expression and dissent.

By the end of 2017 Saudi Arabia had jailed nearly all the founders of the banned Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA).

Saudi Arabia does not tolerate public worship by adherents of religions other than their version of Wahhabi Islam, and systematically discriminates against Muslim religious minorities, notably Shi’a and Ismailis. It transpires in public education, the justice system, religious freedom and employment. Government-affiliated religious authorities continue to disparage Shi’a and Sufi interpretations, versions, and understandings of Islam in public statements and documents.

Saudi Arabia applies Sharia (Islamic law) as its national law. According to Saudi Interior Ministry statements, Saudi Arabia executed 138 persons between January and early December of 2017, mostly for murder and drug crimes. Fifty-seven of those executed were convicted for non-violent drug crimes. Most executions are carried out by beheading, sometimes in public.

Women rights

Women in Saudi Arabia face formal and informal barriers when attempting to make decisions or take action without the presence or consent of a male relative.

Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia’s discriminatory male guardianship system remains intact despite government pledges to abolish it. Under this system, adult women must obtain permission from a male guardian—usually a husband, father, brother, or son—to travel abroad, obtain a passport, marry, or be discharged from prison. They may be required to provide guardian consent to work or access healthcare. Women regularly face difficulty conducting a range of transactions without a male relative, from renting an apartment to filing legal claims.

Migrant workers

Over 9 million migrant workers fill manual, clerical, and service jobs, constituting more than half the workforce. Some suffer abuses and exploitation, sometimes amounting to conditions of forced labor.

Domestic workers who are migrant workers, predominantly women, faced a range of abuses including overwork, forced confinement, non-payment of wages, food deprivation, and psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. Authorities do not hold employees to account. Workers who attempt to report employer abuses sometimes fac prosecution based on counterclaims of theft, “black magic,” or “sorcery.”

“Mohammad bin Salman’s well-funded image as a reformist falls flat in the face of Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe and scores of activists and political dissidents languishing in Saudi prisons on spurious charges,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“Baby steps on women’s rights reforms don’t paper over Saudi Arabia’s systemic abuses.”