[Puffer Fish]

For any of you who thought the women's driving fiasco in Saudi Arabia was over...


Saudi women's rights activist al-Hathloul given prison sentence
December 28, 2020

Loujain al-Hathloul sentenced to five years and eight months in prison by a Saudi court.

Al-Halthloul was among a handful of Saudi women who openly called for the right to drive before it was granted in 2018. [Facebook].

A Saudi terrorism court has sentenced prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to five years and eight months in prison, local media reported, despite international criticism of her detention and pressure to release her.

State-linked Saudi news outlet Sabq reported on Monday that al-Hathloul had been found guilty by the court on charges including agitating for change, pursuing a foreign agenda and using the internet to harm public order.

The court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence.

She has 30 days to appeal the verdict.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/ ... s-activist


The Independent
November 2020
by Maya Oppenheim

Jailed women's rights activists and political prisoners have been sexually assaulted, tortured and died in Saudi Arabian jails, a report has claimed.
The study, shared exclusively with The Independent, alleges that 309 political prisoners have suffered human rights abuses since Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince of the kingdom in 2017.

Grant Liberty, the human rights charity which conducted the report, says people have faced death for crimes carried out when they were as young as nine.
The study, which comes days before Saudi Arabia hosts the G20 on Saturday, notes 27 political prisoners were women's rights activists - saying six of them had been sexually assaulted.

Researchers said 20 prisoners were arrested for political crimes they committed as children - with five of these inmates already put to death and an additional 13 currently facing the death penalty.

The sister of jailed Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul - who is currently on her 23rd day of hunger strike - said she had been tortured and sexually abused in jail.
Loujain's younger sister says "She languishes in a maximum-security prison. In prison, my sister has been tortured and degraded, and sexually abused."
Human rights organisations say Loujain has been forced to endure abuse including electric shocks, flogging and sexual harassment while in jail.

Loujain, who successfully campaigned to win Saudi women the right to drive, was arrested alongside 10 other women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia in May 2018 - weeks before the country reversed the driving ban.
Loujain is awaiting trial on charges of communicating with foreign bodies hostile to Saudi, recruiting government employees to collect confidential information and delivering financial support to entities overseas who are hostile to the kingdom. Saudi officials have denied the torture allegations and claimed they were investigating claims of maltreatment.

Abdullah al-Ghamdi, a Saudi activist who lives in exile, said: "In 2012, I was granted asylum in Britain - I had been campaigning to put an end to the dictatorship and authoritarian policies in Saudi Arabia. I was lucky because I got out - but it is another story for my family. My mother, Aida Al-Ghamdi and two of my brothers were arrested. No explanation has ever been provided but there is no denying the truth. They were arrested not because they had committed a crime, but because of my activism. My mother is 64. She suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. When she was arrested with my brother they were tortured in front of each other. They were beaten and had cigarettes put out on their skin. My brother was forced to record a video denouncing me so official Saudi channels could post it on social media. I was told that any contact with my family would endanger their lives further."

The study reports prolonged solitary confinement is widely utilised by the authorities, while prisoners are repeatedly blocked from consulting their legal teams.

Abdullah al-Odah, who is the son of Salman al-Odah, one of Saudi’s most prominent champions of political reform and human rights, said: "My father faces the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. His crime?
He tweeted an innocuous message to his 14 million Twitter followers wishing an end to the diplomatic standoff with Qatar. They want to kill my father."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 45241.html

[Puffer Fish]

Saudi women may now have the right to drive - but the Saudi women who fought, protested, and campaigned for that right have been stripped of all of their rights. They are detained, behind bars, incommunicado; the victims of vicious torture and abuse.

Still, they haven’t given up. Al-Hathloul has displayed astonishing courage and strength. Her family says that Saudi officials had been willing to release her if she agreed to deny, on camera, that she had been tortured.

She refused.

"She said she had been held in solitary confinement, beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed and threatened with rape and murder," her sister, Alia al-Hathloul, who lives in Belgium, wrote in a New York Times op-ed in January, citing a conversation that Loujain had with her parents during a rare visit to see her in prison. "My parents then saw that her thighs were blackened by bruises."

https://theintercept.com/2019/12/24/lou ... di-arabia/