The Saudi government has also encouraged other citizens to engage in online surveillance through the Saudi phone app Kollona Amn (We Are All Security). Given this context, Human Rights Watch previously has also called for Google to halt its decision to establish a new Cloud region in Saudi Arabia until it can clearly outline steps to mitigate adverse human rights abuses. Earlier in August, a court in California in the United States convicted a former Twitter employee of failing to register as an agent for Saudi Arabia alongside other charges relating to his accessing of users’ private data. The Saudi government is notorious for repressing public dissent and has a well-established record of attempting to infiltrate technology platforms and use advanced cyber surveillance technology to spy on dissidents. Human Rights Watch reviewed al-Shehab’s current Twitter account and found that most tweets over the past four years related to her family and women’s rights issues in Saudi Arabia, none of which advocated or endorsed violence.
The appeals court did not clarify which tweets prompted al-Shehab’s arrest. Al-Shehab has two children, ages 6 and 4. The authorities detained al-Shehab in January 2021 while she was visiting Saudi Arabia and a few days prior to her planned return to the United Kingdom, where she was a PhD candidate in her final year at the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds studying new techniques in oral and dental medicine. In addition to the combined 34-year-sentence, the court issued a subsequent travel ban for 34 years that would begin after her prison term, and an order to confiscate her devices and close her Twitter account. The court sentenced her to another year in prison under the anti-cybercrime law for “creating an online presence that disrupts public order.” The presiding judge also added a discretionary 5-year sentence. The United States, France, and other governments that have diplomatically embraced the kingdom should promptly and publicly condemn this ruling.”Ĭourt documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that al-Shehab was sentenced under Saudi’s counterterrorism law to 8 years in prison for “supporting those who incite terrorism,” 10 years for “providing support to those who seek to disrupt the public order, undermine the security of the society, and the stability of the state by following and retweeting,” 5 years for “creating an online account to commit any of the acts outlawed by the counterterrorism law,” and 5 years for “broadcasting false and malicious rumors.” “Saudi authorities clearly feel empowered to crush any dissent and Saudi women in particular. “Even for Saudi Arabia, the 34-year sentence imposed on al-Shehab for peaceful expression is preposterous,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch.
She appealed the sentence contending that she did not know that her Twitter activity amounted to a crime and that her following base of about 2,000 was too small to “disrupt the order and fabric of society.” On August 9, 2022, the appeals court ruled, instead, to increase her sentence, finding that the original sentence failed to achieve “restraint and deterrence.” In late 2021, the Special Criminal Court, the country’s counterterrorism tribunal, sentenced Salma al-Shehab to six years in prison for her tweets.
The sentence is believed to be the longest ever imposed on a Saudi woman for her peaceful online expression. (Beirut) – A Saudi appeals court in early August 2022 dramatically increased the prison sentence of a Saudi doctoral student from 6 years to 34 years based solely on her Twitter activity, Human Rights Watch said today.
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