Saudi Women’s Rights Activist, Mother of 2 Sentenced to 34 Years in Prison

A doctoral student and women’s rights activist was sentenced by a court in Saudi Arabia to 34 years in prison for tweets expressing solidarity with other women’s rights activists in the country. It is the longest-known prison sentence given to someone fighting for women’s rights in the kingdom, according to The Freedom Initiative.  Salma al-Shehab, the mother of two young sons, was detained in Saudi Arabia in January 2021, where she was visiting, just days before she was scheduled  return to the United Kingdom, where she is a doctoral candidate at the University of Leeds. The appeals court also added a 34-year travel ban upon her release from prison to the sentence. The ruling in Shehab’s case citied her tweets supporting women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul and calling for her freedom. Hathloul, who remains wrongfully held in Saudi Arabia under a travel ban, was released from jail just weeks after Salma’s detention. Hathloul was arrested in May 2018 as part of a sweeping crackdown on women campaigning for the right to drive. She is under a five-year travel ban after serving three years of a six-year prison sentence. “Saudi Arabia has boasted to the world that they are improving women’s rights and creating legal reform, but there is no question with this abhorrent sentence that the situation is only getting worse,” said Dr. Bethany Al-Haidari, the Saudi case manager at the Freedom Initiative. “The Saudi authorities must release Salma and ensure that her young boys do not grow up without a mother simply because she called for freedom for human rights activists.”