Al-Shehab, a 34-year-old mother of two children, is a dental hygienist and PhD student at Leeds University in the United Kingdom, where she was residing before her detention. She was arrested on 15 January 2021 while on holiday in Saudi Arabia, and subjected to solitary confinement and lengthy sessions of questioning over a period of nine and a half months before being brought before the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC), a court used as an instrument of repression to silence dissent in the kingdom.
Al-Shehab belongs to the country’s Shi’a Muslim minority, who have long suffered from the government’s repression. On 9 August 2022, the Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal sentenced al-Shehab to 34 years in prison after a grossly unfair trial, to be followed by a travel ban of the same length.
The charges against her included “supporting those who seek to disrupt the public order”” and publishing tweets “that disrupt the public order”, in connection with posts on her account where she expressed support for prisoners of conscience such as women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul. The sentence also includes closure of her Twitter account and deactivation of her phone number.
Al-Shehab was sentenced under the kingdom’s draconian Counter-Terrorism and Anti-Cyber Crime Laws, which include vaguely formulated provisions that criminalise the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in Saudi Arabia.
She was initially handed down a six-year sentence in March 2022, 14 months after being detained, but her sentence was increased during the appeal process, resulting in the longest known prison sentence against a peaceful activist in the kingdom. This ruling is subject to appeal in the Supreme Court.
Several rights groups from all over the globe have strongly condemn the arbitrary arrest and unlawful sentencing of al-Shehab, which marks a further escalation in the crackdown on free speech in Saudi Arabia.
In contrast to the authorities’ rhetoric on human rights, including women’s rights and legal reforms, the real drivers of reform – the activists calling for basic rights – continue to be ruthlessly targeted and silenced, with repressive laws being used to criminalise their peaceful expression and activism, they said.
They deplored that it is the longest known prison sentence handed down against a peaceful activist for their free speech in Saudi Arabia, signalling an alarming deterioration of the human rights situation in the country.
They called on the international community to press Saudi Arabian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release women’s rights activist and academic Salma al-Shehab, who was recently sentenced to 34 years in prison based on tweets in support of women’s rights and for the respect of basic rights.
The groups include ACAT-France, Freedom House, PEN International, ALQST for Human Rights, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB), Amnesty International, ARTICLE19, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and OMCT.
