https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/17/23310126/twitter-saudi-woman-sentenced-34-years-salma-al-shehab

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Filed under:

  * Policy
  * Tech
  * Twitter

Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

New, 6 comments

Salma al-Shehab, a PhD student at the University of Leeds, shared
posts in favor of women's rights

By Corin Faife@corintxt Aug 17, 2022, 3:21pm EDT
6 comments / new

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[acastro_ST] Alex Castro / The Verge

A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for retweeting
activists through her Twitter account and sharing posts that spoke in
favor of the right of women to drive. Salma al-Shehab was a PhD
candidate at the University of Leeds in the UK and was detained in
January 2021 after returning to Saudi Arabia for a vacation.

Shehab was initially sentenced to six years for using social media to
"disturb public order and destabilize the security and stability of
the state," based on having reshared tweets from Saudi activists
living in exile who called for the release of political prisoners in
the kingdom.

The incident was reported in an editorial board piece from The 
Washington Post, which called it "yet another glimpse at the brutal
underside of the Saudi dictatorship under its crown prince and de
facto head of state, Mohammed bin Salman."

Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, was found by US intelligence
services to have directly approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a
Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist who was assassinated
in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

The Post reports that prosecutors in the appeal to Shehab's case
argued for a more severe punishment under Saudi cybercrime and
anti-terrorism laws, leading to a drastically increased sentence of
34 years, handed down on August 8th. The Freedom Initiative
nonprofit, which advocates for the rights of prisoners detained in
the Middle East, states that this is the longest known sentence for a
women's rights activist in Saudi Arabia.

The draconian punishment is another reminder of the ongoing threats
facing Saudi activists, particularly those who publicly advocate for
change. In July, President Joe Biden drew strong criticism from human
rights groups for his trip to Saudi Arabia -- a trip that he justified
in his own Post op-ed as being necessary to secure access to energy
resources and strategic trade routes in the region. On the trip,
Biden claimed to have told Saudi officials that he held MBS
responsible for the assassination of Khashoggi -- although various
sources disputed this claim.

Reporting on Shehab's case in The Guardian notes that MBS indirectly
controls a large stake in Twitter through the Saudi nation's
sovereign wealth investment fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Twitter has not currently issued any statement on the case.

Other notable Twitter shareholders also have ties to Saudi wealth:
text messages disclosed as part of a Tesla shareholder lawsuit
revealed that Elon Musk believed the PIF would help him take Tesla
private in 2018.

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