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Saudi court hands prison sentence to women's rights activist - local media

By Reuters Staff


FILE PHOTO: Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul is seen in this undated handout picture. Marieke Wijntjes/Handout via REUTERS

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Saudi court on Monday sentenced prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to five years and eight months in prison, local media reported, in a trial that has drawn international condemnation and as Riyadh faces new U.S. scrutiny.

Hathloul, 31, has been held since 2018 following her arrest along with at least a dozen other women’s rights activist.

The verdict, reported by Sabq and al-Shark al-Awsat newspapers, poses an early challenge to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s relationship with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who has described Riyadh as a “pariah” for its human rights record.

Hathloul was charged with seeking to change the Saudi political system and harming national security, local media said. The court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence, or time served since Hathloul was arrested on May 15, 2018, the newspapers said.

United Nations human rights experts have called the charges against her spurious, and along with leading rights groups and lawmakers in the United States and Europe have called for her release.

The detentions of women activitsts occured shortly before and after the kingdom lifted a ban on women driving, which many activists had long championed, as part of reforms introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that were also accompanied by a crackdown on dissent and an anti-corruption purge.

Hathloul’s sentencing came just nearly three weeks after a Riyadh court jailed U.S.-Saudi physician Walid al-Fitaihi for six years, despite U.S. pressure to release him, in a case rights groups have called politically motivated.

Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Raya Jalabi; writing by Raya Jalabi; Editing by Gareth Jones and Angus MacSwan



MIDDLE EAST
Saudi women’s rights activist sentenced to nearly 6 years

By Aya Batrawy The Associated Press
Mon., Dec. 28, 2020

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - One of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent women’s rights activists was sentenced Monday to nearly six years in prison, according to state-linked media, under a vague and broadly worded counterterrorism law. The ruling nearly brings to a close a case that has drawn international criticism and the ire of U.S. lawmakers.

Loujain al-Hathloul has already been in pre-trial detention and has endured several stretches of solitary confinement. Her continued imprisonment was likely to be a point of contention in relations between the kingdom and the incoming presidency of Joe Biden, whose inauguration takes place in January — around two months before what is now expected to be al-Hathloul’s release date.

Rights group “Prisoners of Conscience,” which focuses on Saudi political detainees, said al-Hathloul could be released in March 2021 based on time served. She has been imprisoned since May 2018, and 34 months of her sentencing will be suspended.


Her family said in a statement she will be barred from leaving the kingdom for five years and required to serve three years of probation after her release.

Biden has vowed to review the U.S.-Saudi relationship and take into greater consideration human rights and democratic principles. He has also vowed to reverse President Donald Trump’s policy of giving Saudi Arabia “a blank check to pursue a disastrous set of policies,” including the targeting of female activists.


Al-Hathloul was found guilty and sentenced to five years and eight months by the kingdom’s anti-terrorism court on charges of agitating for change, pursuing a foreign agenda, using the internet to harm public order and co-operating with individuals and entities that have committed crimes under anti-terror laws, according to state-linked Saudi news site Sabq. The charges all come under the country’s broadly worded counterterrorism law.

She has 30 days to appeal the verdict.

“She was charged, tried and convicted using counter-terrorism laws,” her sister, Lina al-Hathloul, said in a statement. “My sister is not a terrorist, she is an activist. To be sentenced for her activism for the very reforms that MBS and the Saudi kingdom so proudly tout is the ultimate hypocrisy,” she said, referring to the Saudi crown prince by his initials.


Sabq, which said its reporter was allowed inside the courtroom, reported that the judge said the defendant had confessed to committing the crimes and that her confessions were made voluntarily and without coercion. The report said the verdict was issued in the presence of the prosecutor, the defendant, a representative from the government’s Human Rights Commission and a handful of select local media representatives.

The 31-year-old Saudi activist has long been defiantly outspoken about human rights in Saudi Arabia, even from behind bars. She launched hunger strikes to protest her imprisonment and joined other female activists in telling Saudi judges that she was tortured and sexually assaulted by masked men during interrogations. The women say they were caned, electrocuted and waterboarded. Some say they were forcibly groped and threatened with rape.

Al-Hathloul rejected an offer to rescind her allegations of torture in exchange for early release, according to her family. A court recently dismissed her allegations, citing a lack of evidence.

Among other allegations was that one of the masked interrogators was Saud al-Qahtani, a close confidante and advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the time. Al-Qahtani was later sanctioned by the U.S. for his alleged role in the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey.

While more than a dozen other Saudi women’s rights activists face trial, have spent time in prison or remain jailed, al-Hathloul’s case stood out in part because she was the only female rights activist to be referred to the Specialized Criminal Court, which tries terrorism cases.

In many ways, her case came to symbolize Prince Mohammed’s dual strategy of being credited for ushering in sweeping social reforms and simultaneously cracking down on activists who had long pushed for change.

While some activists and their families have been pressured into silence, al-Hathloul’s siblings, who reside in the U.S. and Europe, consistently spoke out against the state prosecutor’s case and launched campaigns calling for her release.

The prosecutor had called for the maximum sentence of 20 years, citing evidence such as al-Hathloul’s tweets in support of lifting a decades-long ban on women driving and speaking out against male guardianship laws that had led to multiple instances of Saudi women fleeing abusive families for refuge abroad. Al-Hathloul’s family said the prosecutor’s evidence also included her contacts with rights group Amnesty International and speaking to European diplomats about human rights in Saudi Arabia.

The longtime activist was first detained in 2014 under the previous monarch, King Abdullah, and held for more than 70 days after she attempted to livestream herself driving from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia to protest the ban on women driving.

She’s also spoken out against guardianship laws that barred women from travelling abroad without the consent of a male relative, such as a father, husband or brother. The kingdom eased guardianship laws last year, allowing women to apply for a passport and travel freely.

Her activism landed her multiple human rights awards and spreads in magazines like Vanity Fair in a photo shoot next to Meghan Markle, who would later become the Duchess of Sussex. She was also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

Al-Hathloul’s family say in 2018, shortly after attending a U.N.-related meeting in Geneva about the situation of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, she was kidnapped by Emirati security forces in Abu Dhabi, where she’d been residing and pursuing a master’s degree. She was then forced on a plane to Saudi Arabia, where she was barred from travelling and later arrested.

Al-Hathloul was among three female activists targeted that year by state-linked media, which circulated her picture online and dubbed her a traitor.

Saudi activist jail sentence paves way for release within months: family

BY ANUJ CHOPRA (AFP) 

A Saudi court on Monday sentenced prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul to five years and eight months in prison for terrorism-related crimes, but she is expected to be released within months, her family said.

Hathloul, 31, was arrested in May 2018 with about a dozen other women activists just weeks before the historic lifting of a decades-long ban on female drivers, a reform they had long campaigned for, sparking a torrent of international criticism.

The women's rights activist was convicted of "various activities prohibited by the anti-terrorism law", the pro-government online outlet Sabq and other media allowed to attend her trial cited the court as saying.

The court handed a prison term of five years and eight months, but suspended two years and 10 months of the sentence "if she does not commit any crime" within the next three years, they added.

"A suspension of 2 years and 10 months in addition to the time already served (since May 2018) would see her (released) in approximately two months," Lina al-Hathloul, the activist's sister, wrote on Twitter.

Another source close to her family and the London-based campaign group ALQST said she would be released by March next year.

The court also banned the activist from leaving the kingdom for five years, her sister said.

This verdict was a "face saving exit strategy" for the Saudi government after coming under severe international pressure for her release, the source told AFP.

A motion to appeal can be filed within 30 days, local media reported.

After being tried in Riyadh's criminal court, her trial was transferred last month to the Specialised Criminal Court, or the anti-terrorism court, which campaigners say is notorious for issuing long jail terms and is used to silence critical voices under the cover of fighting terrorism.

Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told AFP that Hathloul was accused of contacting "unfriendly" states and providing classified information, but her family said no evidence to support the allegations had been put forward.

While some detained women activists have been provisionally released, Hathloul and others remain imprisoned on what rights groups describe as opaque charges.

The pro-government Saudi media has branded them as "traitors" and Hathloul's family alleges she experienced sexual harassment and torture in detention. Saudi authorities deny the charges.

- Spotlight on human rights -

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, has faced growing international criticism for its human rights record.

But the kingdom appears to be doubling down on dissent, even as US President-elect Joe Biden's incoming administration could intensify scrutiny of its human rights failings.

Aside from a host of international campaigners and celebrities, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has demanded the "immediate and unconditional release" of Hathloul.

The detention of women activists has cast a spotlight on the human rights record of the kingdom, which has also faced intense criticism over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate.

Hathloul began a hunger strike in prison on October 26 to demand regular contact with her family, but felt compelled to end it two weeks later, her siblings said.

"She was being woken up by the guards every two hours, day and night, as a brutal tactic to break her," Amnesty said last month, citing the activist's family.

"Yet, she is far from broken."

The Specialised Criminal Court was established in 2008 to handle terrorism-related cases, but has been widely used to try political dissidents and human rights activists.

In a report earlier this year, Amnesty International said the secretive court was being used to silence critical voices under the cover of fighting terrorism.


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