Salma al-Shehab: Saudi Woman Gets 34 Years In Prison For Having A Twitter Account

A mother of two has been sentenced to 34 years of prison in Saudi Arabia for her tweets. Read on. 

saudi woman sentence to prison for years for twitter

Salma al-Shaheb, a 34-year-old mother of two, has been sentenced to jail for 34 years on August 8 for causing “public unrest and destabilising civil and national security”. She was initially sentenced to three years in prison for following people on Twitter who caused unrest in the country.

Who Is Salma al-Shehab

Salma al-Shehab’s Instagram account had only 159 followers, and she described herself as a medical educator, dental hygienist and PhD student at Leeds University. She is also a lecturer at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University.

According to a Guardian report, she had 2,597 followers on Twitter and had tweets regarding COVID-19 burnout and a few pictures of her kids.

She sometimes retweeted tweets of Saudi dissents who are living in exile. Those tweets were mere in support of the release of those political prisoners.

She also supported Loujain al-Hathloul, who was a Saudi feminist activist. She was in prison and allegedly tortured for supporting the driving rights of women. Currently, she is free but banned from travelling.

‘Could Not Stomach Injustice’

salma al sehhab sentence

Image Courtesy: Twitter

Shehab was pursuing PhD in the UK and returned to Saudi Arabia only in December 2020. She wished to take her family to the United Kingdom. However, Saudi authorities called her for questioning, arrested her and tried her for her tweets.

A person close to her told the Guardian that she could not stomach injustice (women who came forefront against injustice). One of the followers told the publication that Shehab had been held in solitary confinement. In her trial, she tried to privately tell the judge about the ill-treatment she received. She could bring herself to talk about it in front of her father.

However, she was not even allowed to speak to the judge. The appeals verdict had the illegible signatures of three judges.

Twitter Connections With Saudi Prince

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns more than 5% of shares of Twitter through Kingdom Holdings, an investment company. The US media publications like the Wall Street Journal also questioned his control over the group after one of his cousins was held captive in Riyadh for 83 days.

According to a 2018 interview with Bloomberg, Prince Alwaleed shared that he reached an understanding with the Saudi government for the release of his cousin. It was confidential.

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The Guardian reached out to Twitter and asked a few questions with respect to Shehab’s case. However, their team refused to share any specifics on this or any connection of the company with the Saudi royals. They were previous also asked about why Bader al-Asaker, a senior aide to Prince Mohammed, was allowed to keep an account with two million followers.

The US government alleged that Asaker orchestrated an illegal infiltration of the company. A former employee of Twitter was also convicted by the US court in the same case.

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Free Salma al-Shehab Trend On Twitter

A group called The Freedom Initiative has started the trend called #FreeSalma. It pointed out that she is not only sentenced to 34 years of prison but also 34 years of the travel ban. By the time she could meet her sons, she would be 102 years old.

Another user wrote that her sentencing intended to send shock waves inside and outside the kingdom.

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