A 34-year-old woman in Saudi now faces 34 years in prison for following and retweeting the posts of dissidents. Her ruling has invited an outcry from several international organizations, including Leeds University where she is a student.
Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi woman and a prominent activist for woman’s rights in Saudi has been rewarded a sentence of 34 years by a terrorism tribunal in Saudi Arabia. The 34-year-old woman, mother of two was back in her home country for holidays when she faced conviction as she had “transmitted false rumours”. She is facing such a harsh punishment because of a few tweets she re-tweeted recently.
Saudi tribunal’s ruling
A special terrorist court has ruled Shehab guilty and sentenced her to one of the harshest prison sentences ever given, to “cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security”.
Salma is a final year PhD student at Leeds University studying medicine. The activist had come home for vacation and was to return to the U.K.
Three days before her detention, Salma had called for the release of jailed political activists in Saudi. She expressed her views via Twitter by re-tweeting and following the said activists. The court took notice of this. It issued in its documents that she was, “assisting those who seek to cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts”.
For the past five years, Crown prince Mohammad bin Salman’s crackdown on dissent has intensified gravely. Activists, clerics,etc. Those who disagree with the regime have had to face harsh punishments. Salma is now another addition to that list.
Many experts and sources are also speculating that Salma’s identity as a Shia Muslim might have also gone against her. In the Sunni-majority country, Shia Muslims are not treated equally. “Shehab’s religious identity as a Shi’a Muslim is believed to have been a factor in her arrest and harsh sentencing”, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said.
Initially, her sentence was merely six years long. However, the court reviewed it and increased her sentence considerably, followed by a 34-year-old travel ban. It is worth mentioning that Shehab had already spent 285 days in detention before going for a trial.
Shehab herself has described the judgement as “destruction of me, my family, my future, and the future of my children”
International backlash
Al-Shehab’s case drew flak from all directions and several organizations abroad. “We are deeply concerned to learn of this recent development in Salma’s case and we are seeking advice on whether there is anything we can do to support her”, said Leeds University. “Our thoughts remain with Salma, her family, and her friends among our close-knit community of postgraduate researchers, ” they added.
Al Qst (ALQST), a British-Arabic organization also came to her support. They said that the government is “hellbent on harshly punishing anyone who expresses their opinions freely”. “In the #Saudi authorities’ longest prison sentence ever for a peaceful activist, the Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal on 9 August handed down terms totalling 34 years without suspension to women’s rights campaigner Salma al-Shehab”, ALQST said on Twitter.
Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) also came to her defence. “The Public Prosecution accused her of several charges, including undermining the security of society and the stability of the state, spreading sedition, providing aid to those who seek to disrupt public order, and spreading false and malicious rumours on Twitter. Appeals court judges invoked the counterterrorism regime and its financing to justify the harsh ruling, even though all charges against her relate to her Twitter activity”
The kingdom is yet to respond to the judgement. For now, Salma’s future hangs in uncertainty.
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