Editing House of Saud (section)

==Criticism==
Due to its [[Authoritarianism|authoritarian]] and quasi-theocratic rule, the House of Saud has attracted much criticism during its rule of Saudi Arabia. There have been numerous incidents, including the Wahhabi Ikhwan militia uprising during the reign of Ibn Saud. [[Osama bin Laden]], a critic of the US, was a critic of Saudi Arabia and was denaturalized in the mid 1990s.

On 20 November 1979, the Grand Mosque seizure saw the al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca violently seized by a group of 500 heavily armed and provisioned Saudi dissidents led by [[Juhayman al-Otaybi]] and [[Abdullah al-Qahtani]], consisting mostly of members of the former Ikhwan militia of Otaibah but also of other peninsular Arabs and a few Egyptians enrolled in Islamic studies at the Islamic University of Madinah. The Saudi royal family turned to the Ulema who duly issued a ''fatwa'' permitting the storming of the holy sanctuary by Saudi forces, aided by French and Pakistani special ops units. According to Lawrence Wright, the GIGN commandos did convert to Islam. Most of those responsible, including Al-Otaybi himself, were beheaded publicly in four cities of Saudi Arabia.

In January 2016, Saudi Arabia executed the prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr, who had called for pro-democracy demonstrations, along with forty-seven other Saudi shia citizens sentenced by the Specialized Criminal Court on terrorism charges.

Since May 2017 in response to protests against the government, the predominantly Shia town of Al-Awamiyah has been put under full siege by the Saudi military. Residents are not allowed to enter or leave, and military indiscriminately shells the neighborhoods with airstrikes, mortar and artillery fire along with snipers shooting residents. Dozens of Shia civilians were killed, including a three year old and a two-year-old child. The Saudi government claims it is fighting terrorists in al-Awamiyah.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman kept his own mother away from his father for more than two years, out of the fear that she would stop the king from giving the power to him. Princess Fahda bint Falah Al Hathleen, third wife of King Salman was said to be in the US for medical treatment. However, according to the US intelligence she was not in the country.

Some Royals have been criticised for various human rights violations, including the [[Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi|death of Jamal Khashoggi]], treatment of workers, and the Yemen war.