Is it even real ?? Saudi woman sentenced to 34 years in jail for using Twitter. Read full article to know the story.
Woman is sentenced to 34 years jail that also foe using twittter in saudi. A student at Leeds University named Salma al-Shehab was accused of following and retweeting activists and dissidents.
A Saudi university student from Leeds who had visited his home country on vacation. She was given a 34-year prison term for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting activists and dissidents.
After US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which human rights advocates had warned may empower the monarchy to further up its crackdown on dissidents and other pro-democracy campaigners, the special terrorism court in Saudi Arabia sentenced the defendants.
The case also serves as the most recent illustration of how Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has used Twitter users as a target in his campaign of repression. While also holding a sizable indirect stake in the US social media giant through the Public Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund (PIF).
For the “crime” of using an online website to “create public disturbance and destabilise civil and national security,”. A 34-year-old Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two small children, was initially given a sentence of three years in jail. But on Monday, an appeals court changed the sentence, imposing a 34-year jail term followed by a 34-year travel restriction. It was after the public prosecutor urged the court to take other alleged offences into account.
The latest allegations include the claim that Shehab was “assisting people who attempt to generate public disturbance and jeopardise civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts” and by retweeting their messages, according to a translation of the court documents viewed by the Guardian. She may have a new appeal in the case.
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Shehab was not a well-known or particularly outspoken Saudi activist, either in the country or the UK, according to all sources. She identified herself on Instagram. There she had 159 followers, as a wife and mother to her two kids. Noah and Adam, as well as a dental hygienist, medical educator, PhD student at Leeds University, lecturer at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, and as a lecturer.
She had 2,597 followers, according to her Twitter page. Shehab occasionally shared tweets from Saudi dissidents in exile calling for the liberation of political prisoners in the country. Among her posts about Covid’s burnout and images of her small children. She appeared to support the situation of Loujain al-Hathloul, a well-known Saudi feminist activist. which had previously been jailed, is thought to have been tortured for advocating for women’s driving rights, and is currently residing in a country where travel is prohibited.
Further on case
According to someone who followed her case, Shehab was occasionally kept in solitary confinement.Tried to speak with the judge in private during her trial about how she had been treated since she did not want to discuss it in front of her father. She was not allowed to inform the court about the communication, the source claimed. Three judges signed the appeals decision, although their signatures were not readable. In addition to declining to comment on the situation, Twitter remained silent when pressed on whether Saudi Arabia had any sort of influence over the firm.
Bader al-Asaker, a senior aide to Prince Mohammed, is accused by the US government of orchestrating an illegal infiltration of the company that resulted in the identification and imprisonment of anonymous Twitter users by the Saudi government. Twitter previously ignored questions from the Guardian about why he is permitted to maintain a verified Twitter account with more than 2 million followers. A US court has found a former employee of Twitter guilty in connection with the case.
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The Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns more than 5% of Twitter. Through his investment firm, Kingdom Holdings, making him one of the platform’s biggest investors. Prince Alwaleed is still the company’s chairman. But once it came to light that the Saudi royal – a cousin of the crown prince – had been imprisoned in the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh for 83 days. His authority over the organisation was questioned in the US media, including the Wall Street Journal.
The episode includes charges of torture, coercion, and the expropriation of billions of dollars in assets into Saudi coffers. It was a part of a larger purge orchestrated by Prince Mohammed against other members of the royal family and companies.
The billionaire admitted having a “verified arrangement” with the Saudi authorities. Ostensibly in connection with his release, in a 2018. Bloomberg interview that was done in Riyadh seven weeks after his release.
More recently, Kingdom Holding declared in May that it had paid $1.5 billion. To sell around 17% of its business to the PIF, whose chairman is Prince Mohammed. Consequently, the Saudi government is now a sizable indirect investment in Twitter. Twitter claims that investors are not involved in running the day-to-day operations of the firm.
The sentence given to Shehab was deemed the longest prison term ever. Which was imposed on an activist by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights. It was observed that several female activists had endured “extreme torture,”. Including sexual harassment, as well as unjust trials that resulted in arbitrary sentences.
MORE ON SAUDI TWITTER CASE
A Saudi living in exile whose sister and brother are detained in the country. Khalid Aljabri, claimed that the Shehab case supported Saudi Arabia’s notion that dissent is equivalent to terrorism.
He stated of the crown prince, “Salma’s severe punishment in a terrorist court on harmless comments is the latest example of MBS’s vicious repression machine.” “Like [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi’s murder, her punishment is meant to shock people both inside and outside the kingdom. Dare criticise MBS and you’ll end up being dismembered or imprisoned in Saudi Arabia,” the statement reads.
The Washington Post published a critical editorial on Tuesday on Saudi Arabia’s treatment of the Leeds student. Despite the fact that the matter has not garnered much publicity. It said that her case demonstrated that the “commitments” the president had received on changes were “a charade.”
At the absolute least, Mr. Biden must now speak out strongly and demand that Ms. Shehab be released so she may rejoin her sons, ages 4 and 6. They are in the United Kingdom and continue her studies there, according to the statement.
