A Saudi female has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for retweeting activists via her Twitter account and sharing posts that spoke in favour of the right of women to be able to drive. Salma al-Shehab, who was a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds in the UK . She was detained in January 2021 after returning to Saudi Arabia for a vacation. Shehab was first sentenced to 6 years for the use of social media to “disturb public order and destabilize the safety and stability of the state,” based on having reshared tweets from Saudi activists living in exile who called for the discharge and the release of political prisoners in the kingdom.
The incident was reported in an article board piece from The Washington Post, which was known as another episode of the brutal underside of the Saudi dictatorship under its crown prince and de facto head of state, who is Mohammed bin Salman.
Mohammed bin Salman, called MBS, was located by US intelligence services to have immediately authorized the killing of a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist named Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
The Post reviews that prosecutors in the appeal to Shehab’s case argued for a greater extreme punishment under Saudi cybercrime and anti-terrorism laws, which led to an extensively increased sentence of 34 years, handed down on 8th August. this is the longest recognized sentence for a women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia, says the Freedom Initiative nonprofit, which advocates for the rights of prisoners detained in the Middle East.
The draconian punishment is another reminder of Saudi activists’ continuing threats, specifically individuals who publicly advocate and want change. In July, President Joe Biden drew substantial grievance from human rights groups for his trip to Saudi Arabia — a journey that he justified in his Post-op-ed as being vital to secure access to energy assets and strategic trade routes in the area. On the trip, Biden claimed to have advised Saudi officers that he held MBS accountable for the assassination of Khashoggi — even though numerous sources disputed this claim.
