Saudi Girl Sentenced To 45 years In Jail For Social Media Posts: Report

The social media sentences have renewed consideration on Prince Mohammed’s crackdown on dissent.

Riyadh:

A Saudi Arabian court docket on Wednesday sentenced a lady to 45 years in jail for allegedly harming the nation by means of her social media exercise, the second such case this month.

Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani, who hails from one of many largest tribes in Saudi Arabia and has no obvious historical past of activism, was sentenced to jail to virtually half a century in jail after the choose accused her of “disrupting the cohesion of society” and “destabilizing the social material” through social media, Fox Information reported.

The choose additionally dominated that al-Qahtani “offended the general public order by means of the data community.”

It stays unclear what al-Qahtani posted on-line or the place her listening to was held. She was taken into custody on July 4, 2021, in keeping with Fox Information citing Washington-based human rights watchdog Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which is vital of the dominion.

“This looks like the start of a brand new wave of sentences and convictions by new judges who’ve been positioned within the specialised prison court docket,” Abdullah Alaoudh, Analysis Director for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at DAWN, stated concerning the case.

Alaoudh says that al-Qahtani was jailed for “merely tweeting her opinions.”

The sentence follows a global outcry over an identical incident when a 34-year lady was sentenced to jail.

“It’s totally exhausting to disregard the truth that we’re seeing these sentences as (Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) has obtained elevated legitimacy within the worldwide realm,” stated Allison McManus, the group’s analysis director.

The social media sentences have renewed consideration on Prince Mohammed’s crackdown on dissent, even because the ultraconservative Islamic nation has granted ladies new freedoms like the suitable to drive, the Washington Put up reported.

President Joe Biden travelled to the oil-rich kingdom in July for a gathering with Prince Mohammed, by which he stated he confronted him about human rights. Biden got here to workplace vowing to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

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