A Leeds University student who received a 34-year jail term has been freed by Saudi authorities. The punishment was imposed for tweeting about the freedoms of women, according to rights organizations.
Salma Al-Shehab was freed following four years of arbitrary confinement, according to the ALQST Rights Center. Her actions were described as “peaceful activism” by ALQST.
The human rights organization urged Saudi authorities to fully remove restrictions on her. Among the demands was the freedom to make trips to the United Kingdom to finish her PhD studies. When she was detained, she was a student at Leeds University.
Al-Shehab experienced a “difficult” time in prison, according to the ALQST media chief on Tuesday. Lina Al-Hathloul claims that while she was in custody, she was unable to visit her two small kids.
Al-Hathloul, whose sister had previously been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, claims that she was additionally compelled to undergo a hunger strike for a lengthy period in two years ago in order to receive medical care in custody. She thinks her liberation is a long way from freedom. Living under a travel restriction is living in constant fear of being arrested.
The 36-year-old PhD student who has to children had been studying at Saudi Princess Noura University on an award of scholarship. Over four years ago, she was detained while in Saudi Arabia attending her relatives. At first, she received a six-year jail term. The Court of Appeal, nevertheless, soared the term to 34 years a year later.
Subsequently, the prison term was reduced to 27 years, and last year, it was once more reduced to four years. As part of her ultimate punishment, Salma Al-Shehab was prohibited from traveling for the same amount of time. She is born into a Shiite Muslim household in the eastern Saudi Arabian region of Al-Mubarraz. Salma is not a well-known campaigner. About 2,600 persons follow her account on X, formerly known as Twitter. She defended gender equality in the majority of her postings.
Her sole “crime,” according to Amnesty International, was just posting in social media in favor of Saudi female community. Numerous campaigners, religious leaders, and rights defenders have been jailed by Saudi Arabia in recent years. Many of these are regular people and women who were punished in accordance with a 2017 counterterrorism statute. The rule was implemented months after the new Crow Prince was introduced few months earlier.
Many of those incarcerated were sentenced to long and severe jail terms. Renowned female activist Manal Al-Otaibi received an 11-year jail term. Similarly, Noura Al-Qahtani received a 45-year prison term for her statements on social media.
But there has just been a significant development in Saudi Arabia on this delicate subject. Additionally, government officials freed preacher Mohammed Al-Habdan and scholar Malik Al-Ahmad. In the mid-2017, they were taken into custody as part of a massive arrest operation.
Mohammed Al-Qahtani was among the several inmates freed by the Saudi government in December. The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association was co-founded by Al-Qahtani. In 2013, the association was disbanded. In November 2022, over twenty-five months after the expiration of his prison term, Al-Qahtani was freed.
