A court in Saudi Arabia has reportedly sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison over her Twitter activism on Wednesday.
The woman, Salma al-Shehab, was found guilty of helping heretics seeking to “disrupt public order” in the kingdom. The sentence was handed down by the Saudi appeals court on August 9, documents showed.
Shehab is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Leeds in the UK. A part of the sentence is that the mother of two cannot travel abroad for another 34 years.
With about 2,600 followers on Twitter, Shehab had frequently tweeted about women’s rights in the conservative Sunni Muslim country.
The sentence comes amid a crackdown on rights activists in the oil-rich Gulf state, many of whom have been slapped with jail sentences and travel bans.
Shehab was first arrested in Saudi Arabia in January 2021 while she was on holiday from her studies in the United Kingdom. Initially only given a six-month sentence in June, the courts eventually got stricter earlier this month,
Her latest sentence can be appealed within 30 days at the kingdom’s supreme court, according to the court documents.
London-based rights group ALQST denounced the ruling, describing it as the “Saudi authorities’ longest prison sentence ever for a peaceful activist”.
“This appalling sentence makes a mockery of the Saudi authorities’ claims of reform for women and of the legal system,” said Lina al-Hathloul, ALQST’s head of communications.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has been credited with introducing various reforms in favour of women, such as lifting the ban on driving and the requirement to wear a headscarf.
But such reforms have been accompanied by a crackdown on women’s rights activists, part of a broader campaign against dissent.
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