Saudi Arabia: Activist Salma Al-Shehab sentenced to 34 years for tweets
Re-post news from 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 ru...