Oman is an absolute monarchy in which all legislative, executive, and judiciary power ultimately rests in the hands of the hereditary sultan, and in which the system of laws is based firmly on Islamic sharia. Although a report by the U.S. State Department, based on conditions in 2010, summed up the human rights situation in the country by asserting that the government “generally respected the human rights of its citizens,” the details in the report itself strongly indicate otherwise, and several international human-rights groups have described the state of human-rights in Oman in highly critical terms.