According to court documents released on Thursday, a Saudi court sentenced a doctorate student to 34 years in prison for disseminating “rumors” and retweeting opponents. This judgment has garnered increasing international criticism.
Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two and a researcher at Leeds University in Britain, was given a sentence that activists and attorneys believe is terrible even by Saudi standards of justice.
The verdict, which the monarchy has not yet acknowledged, was handed down as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cracked down on opposition while also granting women the right to drive and other new freedoms in the ultraconservative Islamic country.
Al-Shehab was seized on Jan. 15, 2021, while on a family vacation, just days before she was scheduled to fly back to the UK, according to the Freedom Initiative, a human rights organization based in Washington.
The legal records obtained by The Associated Press reveal that before her case was even referred to court, Al-Shehab told judges she had spent more than 285 days in solitary confinement.
Al-Shehab is a member of the Shiite Muslim minority in Saudi Arabia, which has long complained of institutionalized discrimination in the Sunni-ruled country, according to the Freedom Initiative.
“Saudi Arabia has boasted to the world that they are improving women’s rights and creating legal reform, but there is no question with this abhorrent sentence that the situation is only getting worse,” said Bethany al-Haidari, the group’s Saudi case manager.
Amnesty International, a renowned human rights organization, criticized al-trial Shehab’s on Thursday, calling it “grossly unfair,” and her sentence “cruel and unlawful.”
Prince Mohammed has pushed initiatives to diversify the economy of the kingdom away from oil since assuming power in 2017 with massive tourism projects, most recently plans to build the world’s longest building that would span for more than 100 miles in the desert.
However, he has also been under fire for detaining people who defy authority, including activists, princes, and businessmen in addition to dissidents.
According to an official charge sheet, judges accused al-Shehab of “disturbing public order” and “destabilizing the social fabric” based purely on her social media activities. Al-Shehab was accused of following and retweeting opposition accounts.
