Saudi Arabia: Activist Salma Al-Shehab sentenced to 34 years for tweets

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August 19, 2022 Human Rights Watch   23 August 2022 ifex Thu 18 Aug 2022 theguardian

(Beirut) – A Saudi appeals court in early August 2022 dramatically increased the prison sentence of a Saudi doctoral student from 6 years to 34 years based solely on her Twitter activity, Human Rights Watch said today. The sentence is believed to be the longest ever imposed on a Saudi woman for her peaceful online expression.

Court documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that al-Shehab was sentenced under Saudi’s counterterrorism law to 8 years in prison for “supporting those who incite terrorism,” 10 years for “providing support to those who seek to disrupt the public order, undermine the security of the society, and the stability of the state by following and retweeting,” 5 years for “creating an online account to commit any of the acts outlawed by the counterterrorism law,” and 5 years for “broadcasting false and malicious rumors.”

Saudi Arabia: Woman Sentenced to 34 Years for Tweets

Repression Increases Following Easing of Diplomatic Isolation

The Saudi government has also encouraged other citizens to engage in online surveillance through the Saudi phone app Kollona Amn (We Are All Security). The app is described as a tool for citizens to report any kind of criminal activity, including any online “attacks,” “defamation,” or “penetration of social media accounts.” An article in The Guardian found that al-Shehab may have been reported on Kollona Amn, which may have prompted her arrest. In November 2020, she posted screenshots of her interactions with another Saudi account that claimed to have reported her on the app after she posted a mildly critical tweet about a new Saudi public transportation contract.

“A 34-year prison term for a Saudi woman for a small social media presence is a clear indicator that the Saudi leadership is ramping up repression as it emerges from its diplomatic isolation. Al-Shehab’s outrageous sentence signals that the Saudi authorities are now going full steam to crush any and all dissent,” said Yager.

At one point, Shehab said an investigator wanted to include in her statement that Shehab was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist movement that is considered a terrorist organisation in several Arab states including Saudi Arabia.

Shehab’s case has gained international attention as a result of the draconian sentence, which includes a 34-year travel ban after her 34-year prison sentence. The special terrorist court where she was tried alleged that Shehab had supported terrorist ideology because of her use of Twitter, including the fact that she followed the accounts of some dissidents.

The 34-year-old, who was completing her PhD at Leeds University before her January 2021 arrest during a holiday at home, also alleged that she had been “repeatedly accosted” by at least five men for being a member of the kingdom’s Shia Muslim minority. Without providing more details, Shehab said the actions had led to an “outright insult and abuse of human dignity”.

Her alleged crimes including using a website to “cause public unrest” and “assisting those who seek to cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts” and by retweeting their tweets.

Shehab had about 2,000 followers. An examination of her account’s activity shows that on 8 October 2019, Shehab responded to a tweet by a verified Saudi account that reports on developments in the kingdom’s infrastructure projects. When the account tweeted about the launch of a new network of buses, she tweeted the word “finally!”.

More than a year later, on 15 November 2020, a Saudi account with about 200 followers – which shows a man’s face and uses the name Faisal OTB – responded to her tweet with abuse. The user wrote that he had been intrigued by Shehab’s Twitter account because it displayed both the Saudi and Palestinian flags and denounced her for posting “rubbish”. The account user then said he had taken screenshots of some of Shehab’s Twitter activity and reported it on Kollona Amn – adding that he hoped she would be deported to Palestine.

The authorities detained al-Shehab in January 2021 while she was visiting Saudi Arabia and a few days prior to her planned return to the United Kingdom, where she was a PhD candidate in her final year at the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds studying new techniques in oral and dental medicine. Al-Shehab has two children, ages 6 and 4.

The Leeds Central MP Hilary Benn said he was “shocked” to read about Shehab’s case and he would be raising the issue of her sentence with the government. “She should be freed to return to her small children and husband, and to her studies in Leeds,” he said.