British Resident Sentenced by Saudi Court to 34 Years in Jail for Retweeting and Following Dissidents

A Saudi court drastically increased the prison sentence imposed on a Shiite woman who had occasionally engaged with pro-reform Twitter content. The extreme sentence, 34 years, comes just a month after a summit between President Biden and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that focused, in part, on Riyadh’s human-rights record.

Salma al-Shehab, a British resident and Saudi citizen arrested in 2021 during a trip to Saudi Arabia, received the record sentence after appealing a previous six-year sentence. The punishment was handed down by the kingdom’s terrorism court.

The Washington Post cites court records that allege Shehab used Twitter “to disrupt public order, undermine the security of society and stability of the state, and support those who had committed criminal actions according to the counterterrorism law and its financing.” The court found that she used her presence on the platform to follow and “rebroadcast” — or retweet — those who violated the counterterrorism law.

The extent of Shehab’s political activities, however, seems limited to occasionally retweeting the tweets of Saudi dissidents, as the Guardian explains:

Her Twitter profile showed she had 2,597 followers. Among tweets about Covid burnout and pictures of her young children, Shehab sometimes retweeted tweets by Saudi dissidents living in exile, which called for the release of political prisoners in the kingdom. She seemed to support the case of Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi feminist activist who was previously imprisoned, is alleged to have been tortured for supporting driving rights for women, and is now living under a travel ban.

Al-Hathloul was also convicted of terrorism-related charges.

Shehab is a student at Leeds University in Britain, where she was getting a doctorate. The Guardian reports that she might be able to file another appeal with the court.

Despite the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit team, bin Salman is sometimes described as an underrated reformer who has quietly advanced social change, including women’s rights. Shehab’s new sentence — which the Post reports is a record length for a human-rights advocate — seems likely to significantly undercut that narrative.

The Post’s editorial board, meanwhile, wrote that bin Salman’s promises to Biden regarding human rights during a summit last month are farcical:

When President Biden visited Saudi Arabia last month and fist-bumped MBS, the White House said he “raised specific cases of concern” about human rights, including “the egregious murder of Jamal Khashoggi.” The president “received commitments with respect to reforms and institutional safeguards in place to guard against any such conduct in the future.” Now the crown prince shows exactly what safeguards were in place: none. The Saudi promises to Mr. Biden were a farce.