A Woman From Saudi Arabia Has Been Sentenced To 34 Years In Prison For Using Twitter. She Followed The Dissidents

A student from Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 34 years in prison by a local court for having an account on the social network Twitter, where she followed several dissidents criticizing the Saudi regime. Salma Al-Shebab was studying at Leeds University in England, but she was arrested when she returned home to Saudi Arabia for a holiday. She wanted to take her husband and two children to Great Britain, she informs The Guardian.

On her Twitter, Salma Al-Shebab shared the posts of dissidents who repeatedly criticized the Saudi government. For these activities, the court first imposed a three-year sentence on her for using the website to "incite public unrest and destabilize civil and national security."

However, this initial three-year sentence was overturned by the Court of Appeal and the student, who is the mother of two children, was given a new 34-year prison sentence. After serving the 34-year sentence, the judge sentenced the woman to a 34-year ban on traveling out of the country.

The initial sentence was rejected by the state prosecutor, who asked the appeals court to take into account the alleged "other crimes" he said Salma Al-Shebab had committed. Prosecutors accused the student of "assisting a team trying to cause public unrest" by monitoring their Twitter profiles.

However, human rights organizations point out that Salma Al-Shebab was not among the popular Saudi dissidents.

She has 159 followers on her Instagram, while she has amassed a total of 2,597 followers on Twitter, for whom she occasionally expresses her views on the Saudi regime. She called on Saudi Arabia to release political prisoners and supported, for example, the well-known feminist activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who fought for the rights of Saudi women for many years.