Dark side of Saudi Arabia: It's filled with luxury hotels, set to host a World Cup and home to some of the biggest names in sport. But from agonising deaths to women thrown in jail, workers reveal truth behind the glamour

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Published: 12:08 BST, 1 July 2026 | Updated: 12:21 BST, 1 July 2026

It's been four years since Saudi Arabia's ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, unveiled on state television his plans to build a mega metropolis so ambitious that its designs look like something out of a sci-fi comic.

Giga projects, initiatives that are epic in both scale and budget, have become the heir-to-the-Saudi throne's favourite sport.

The 40-year-old Crown Prince heralded his mirrored linear utopian city, known as The Line, as a 'civilisational revolution'. It would house nine million, stretch 106 miles in length and soar half-a-kilometre high – but with a width of just 200m.

The original 2021 drawings appeared to laugh in the face of physics, promising a 45,000-seat football stadium, a deep-hewn 'hidden marina' and a 30-storey 'chandelier' building, as well as robot servants, air taxis and even 'cloud seeding', a process of weather modification used to encourage rain in lands where the heavens rarely open.

Part of the $500billion (£378billion) Neom project, which also includes a mountain resort, luxury Red Sea island and a floating port, it would be the showboating centrepiece of Vision 2030 – a venture designed to lubricate the Saudi economy with something other than oil.

But as of 2026, work on The Line has completely stalled, and the Neom project is drenched in controversy – with a heavy human price seemingly already paid for such architectural grandstanding. 

A 2024 ITV documentary, Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia, estimated around 21,000 workers had died since Vision 2030 first launched in 2016.

The Line project has carved up the bronze-hued desert and mountain terrain of the Tabuk Province in Saudi's far north-west corner and the Huwaitat people who live there have been ousted from ancestral lands. In 2024, a dissident Saudi ex-colonel, Rabih Alenezi, told the BBC that he was instructed to displace Huwaitat homes – and schools and hospitals – at any cost.

The 40-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled on state television his plans to build a mega metropolis known as The Line

As of 2026, work on The Line has completely stalled, and the Neom project is drenched in controversy 

A year earlier, the UN expressed alarm at death penalties issued against three Huwaitat men who had protested the forced evictions. Another man, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, was shot and killed by security forces after refusing to leave his home. Saudi authorities claimed he was a 'wanted terrorist'.

Meanwhile, the glossy marketing machine selling Saudi to tourists has amped up significantly in the last decade; the country has publicly stated a target of 150million annual visitors by 2030.

In 2019, an eVisa permitting 90-day stays was launched, and currently nine flights-a-day land from the UK, with Virgin Atlantic, BA and Wizz Air all jetting in. Next month sees Riyadh Air launch its first routes from Manchester.

Digital and billboard campaigns have positioned Saudi as 'authentic, positive and welcoming' to every type of traveller, papering over its long-held status as a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world.

In 2018, the assassination at Istanbul's Saudi Consulate of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who had criticised the Kingdom's policies and Mohammed bin Salman as ruler, sparked condemnation around the world.

Turkish officials said a 15-man team tortured and dismembered the journalist, while the Saudi government maintained he died in a 'fistfight'.

Shockwaves over Khashoggi's killing have ebbed over time though, says Joey Shea of New York-headquartered organisation, Human Rights Watch.

The researcher told the Daily Mail: 'Saudi Arabia has risen to this very key place in the world geo-politically, and in terms of the economy as well. Those prior violations are not at the forefront of people's minds anymore. Yet the reality, particularly for migrant workers, and for other marginalised communities inside the country, is incredibly dire.'

The original 2021 drawings appeared to laugh in the face of physics, promising a deep-hewn 'hidden marina' and a 30-storey 'chandelier' building

The Neom project also includes proposals for a 45,000-seat football stadium that is set to be one of the venues for the 2034 World Cup

Abuse, the campaigner says, is 'widespread across all employment sectors and geographic regions in Saudi Arabia'. Workers face 'forced labour, including exorbitant recruitment fees, rampant wage theft and inadequate protections from extreme heat'.

Human Rights Watch says its reporting in the last year alone has uncovered a host of workers' deaths that remain without investigation. As deadlines for construction projects creep closer, the government piles on the pressure to complete them.

Shea says: 'There have been horrific workplace deaths, often at outdoor construction sites. We've documented deaths that include falling from buildings, electrocution, even decapitation in some circumstances.'

Then there's the blistering heat, with migrant workers often forced to toil in temperatures of nearly 50 degrees across Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

One employee in the UAE shared with the organisation his fears over extreme weather, saying: 'Sometimes we hear news that someone in another company collapsed from the heat and died. When we hear that, we get goosebumps. We think: "Maybe tomorrow it will be our turn, we're working in the same heat."'

Even less dangerous jobs in the tourist industry come with gruelling terms by the UK's standards. The Daily Mail this week spoke to Ahmed, a 22-year-old Bangladeshi man, who works 12-hour shifts in a café for around £320 a month, with no days off and no annual leave. He shares a single room with five other men, all of different nationalities, and sends his money home to his parents. He says the country has given him a job opportunity and crime is low.

'I work seven days a week with no day off and I don't get a yearly vacation. I don't have any friends in Saudi Arabia and the weather is very hot but when you remember you're working for your family, all this heat is nothing.'

He adds: 'My dream was to go to a European country but I didn't have that much money so I chose Saudi Arabia.'

British national, Ahmed al-Doush, a Bank of America business analyst, was arrested in August 2024 at Riyadh airport as he travelled with his pregnant wife and two children

Tourists touching down in Riyadh are cosseted from Saudi's darker side; this is a Middle East holiday blueprint fashioned in Dubai, majoring on service-led luxury and Western-style attractions, hotels and dining. It's working too – the country has one of the world's fastest growing tourism economies.

A slick 'Welcome to Arabia' visitor website, visitsaudi.com, shouts about days out at Six Flags Qiddiya City, an offshoot of the US theme park brand, exhibitions at Contemporary Art museum SAMoCA and countless opportunities to hike, dune-bash and camp in some of the country's 1.3million square kilometres of desert.

Alongside futuristic-looking projects and cinematic advertising campaigns, global brands landing has also helped add sheen to Saudi's rebranding.

Luxury chains Nobu, Mandarin Oriental and Ritz-Carlton all have outposts here and Gordon Ramsay this month launched his first culinary academy outside of the UK in Riyadh. The list of celebrities who've made high-profile visits is lengthy, from Cynthia Erivo to Gwyneth Paltrow and David Beckham.

In 2019, ex-England star Beckham was warned by Amnesty International UK not to become part of the 'relentless propaganda push' after agreeing to take part in a lucrative exhibition match. Indeed, accusations of 'sportswashing' – using sport for reputational gain – have surrounded a World Cup partnership between state-owned oil company Aramco and football's governing body FIFA.

The commercial hook-up, which also includes the Women's World Cup next year, has seen the Aramco logo flashed across screens worldwide since the current tournament began. Saudi are set to host the men's tournament in 2034.

Despite the Kingdom paying heavy lip service to eco-friendly initiatives, a report issued earlier this month by four major industry voices, FairSquare, Fossil Free Football, Reclame Fossielvrij and Badvertising, called the country the 'world's largest polluter' – and slammed FIFA's president over the commercial deal.

FairSquare director Nicholas McGeehan said: 'Gianni Infantino talks about football uniting the world while stuffing FIFA's coffers with money from the world's largest polluter.

'That FIFA is assisting Aramco in its climate-wrecking endeavours is possibly the best argument we have ever seen in favour of a fossil fuel advertising ban and a further argument in support of imposing reforms on FIFA itself.'

Joey Shea of Human Rights Watch agrees, saying: 'For nearly a decade now since Mohammed bin Salman's rise to power in 2017, there's been a deliberate investment strategy in high-profile entertainment and sporting events to whitewash its egregious human rights record.

'From the FIFA World Cup in 2034 to the Riyadh Comedy Festival, there's so many examples whereby Saudi government money, often financed through the Public Investment Fund, their sovereign wealth fund – one of the largest in the world – attempts to deflect from the reality of the situation.'

Gwyneth Paltrow, pictured here with Mohammed Al Turki at the Red Sea International Film Festival, is one of many celebrities who have visited Saudi Arabia

Read More

How to holiday like a royal: Where to book to recreate the Windsor family's favourite breaks

Elsewhere, LGBTQ+ rights remain non-existent, with same-sex relationships between men and between women criminalised. The gender expression of trans people is also illegal under Sharia (Islamic) law. The highest punishment remains the death penalty.

The deep conservatism extends to drugs too, with 98 people executed for smuggling hashish in 2025.

What about the role of women in Saudi society? Greater freedoms have been introduced; the driving ban was lifted in 2018 and women over 21 can now travel abroad without a male companion – but it's still a bleak picture.

Women's rights activist Manahel al-Otaibi remains in prison after she was arrested in 2022 on charges relating to views expressed online and her clothing. Her initial jail term of 11 years, given in 2024 for 'terrorism', was later reduced to five years.

And this week, Amnesty International and Saudi human rights group ALQST condemned the arrests of nine tourists between 2022 and 2025 for social media posts.

One British national, Ahmed al-Doush, a Bank of America business analyst, was arrested in August 2024 at Riyadh airport as he travelled with his pregnant wife and two children. A ten-year sentence given out by the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) in 2025 was shortened in April to five.

Bissan Fakih, a Middle East and North Africa Campaigner for Amnesty International, told the Daily Mail: 'As Saudi Arabia positions itself as an international tourism destination and invests heavily in tourism as part of its Vision 2030 plan, it is simultaneously arresting and sentencing visitors to the Kingdom to lengthy prison terms simply for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

'Individuals travelling to Saudi Arabia to undertake once-in-a-lifetime religious pilgrimage journeys or to visit their loved ones are suddenly thrust into a nightmare scenario - without warning - torn apart from their families and all of this just for social media posts.'

Should A-listers with a platform boycott the country? Joey Shea says the Human Rights Watch never tells famous faces not to go to Saudi – but asks them to be honest about how the country treats people.

She explains: 'If you are going to accept Saudi government money, and if you are going to be publicly associated with this government in some way, you have a responsibility to mitigate the reputation laundering benefits of that relationship through speaking out about the abuses in the country.'

'For the Riyadh Comedy Festival last year, we never said comedians shouldn't go and perform but suggested that, at some point - any time - they should talk about the abuses happening there to counterbalance the benefits that they gained. So far, none of those performers have done that.'

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