Saudi Arabia’s smart city ‘The Line’: Big on Agenda 2030 and big on human rights violations and workers’ deaths

The Line is a 105-mile (170-kilometre) long, linear smart city being built in Neom, Saudi Arabia.  The city is designed to be a mirrored architectural masterpiece standing 500 meters tall and 200 meters wide.  The project, launched as part of Saudi Vision 2030, aims to transform the country into a global tourism hub.

The Line is designed to be a car-free city, with all transportation systems integrated into a single, efficient network.  The city will be powered entirely by renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and hydrogen-based power generation. And it features embedded smart technologies, with services continually optimised by artificial intelligence (“AI”) to ensure efficient use of resources and minimise environmental impact.

Not only is it humiliating for Saudi Arabia that the 105-mile-long £1 trillion flagship project has been reduced to 1.5 miles but it holds a dirty secret.  The construction of it has faced human rights concerns, including allegations of forced displacement of local tribes, and exploitation and death of migrant workers.

On 27 October, ITVX aired a documentary ‘Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia’ made by a female journalist who went undercover to investigate what life is really like in Saudi Arabia, an increasingly autocratic state.

According to the documentary, over 21,000 workers have died since 2016, with many more suffering from poor working conditions, exploitation and human rights violations. The statistics are staggering, with Nepalese workers alone reporting over 650 unexplained deaths.

The documentary exposes the brutal reality of working conditions in NEOM, including 16-hour days, exceeding Saudi law’s 60-hour weekly limit, workers being forced to work without proper rest, leading to mental fatigue and physical torment, lack of food and sleep resulting in accidents and illnesses, and migrant workers being treated like “trapped slaves” and “beggars.”

It also highlights the systematic exploitation of migrant workers, including missed payments, with some workers going months without receiving wages, and lack of access to healthcare, with workers being forced to pay exorbitant fees for medical treatment.

Reporting on ITVX’s documentary, Middle East Eye quoted Nicholas McGeehan, director at the UK-based human rights organisation FairSquare, as saying that the working hours of the labourers at The Line were “way beyond what the international minimum standards permit.”

“The reality is that workers all over Saudi Arabia are subject to deeply abusive and dangerous exploitation. The abuses are systematically happening across the country,” McGeehan said.

To access ITVX you are required to register with a postcode, unless you live in the UK you may not be able to watch its documentary. However, in September DeCode released the reportage below giving an update on The Line.  The report discusses the human rights abuses relating to the forced displacement of local tribes with the use of lethal force and arrest for anyone who resisted or criticised the project online. It also discussed the financing of the project, with some financiers pulling out after the forced displacement of people came to light, and The Line’s progress, or lack of progress.