One of Saudi Arabia’s top women’s rights activists was sentenced on Monday to five years and eight months in prison despite international pressure to be released., according to a member of her family.
Loujain al-Hathloul’s sentence was suspended for two years and ten months, her sister Lina al-Hathloul said on Twitter. When she is added to the time she has already been in custody since her arrest in May 2018, she could be released in two months, according to her sister.
Lina Al-Hathloul tweeted that her sister was also subject to a five-year travel ban and that the prosecutor and Al-Hathloul could still appeal. NBC News could not independently verify the details of Al-Hathloul’s sentencing.
A spokesman for the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Media confirmed that Al-Hathloul’s sentence was for five years and eight months, of which two years and ten months were suspended, but could not immediately confirm whether the sentence would be suspended until May 2018. not.
Download the NBC News app for news and politics
Loujain Al-Hathloul, 31, became prominent because he openly called for women to be given the right to drive and to end Saudi Arabia’s limited male guardianship system, which had long restricted women’s freedom of movement. She was arrested in May 2018 along with several other women activists, a few weeks before the kingdom ended a decade-long ban on women governance.
Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said some of the women detained, including Al-Hathloul, reported being subjected to ill-treatment in prison, including electric shocks, whipping and sexual assault. Saudi Arabia has denied the allegations.
Human Rights Watch said prosecutors charged Al-Hathloul in 2019 with violations related to her advocacy for human rights, before later amending her indictment and transferring her case to the country’s infamous Specialized Criminal Court in late November. specializes in dealing with terrorism cases.
Other dissidents, including the cleric Salman al-Awda, who called on the country’s rulers to respond more to the people’s desires for reform, also stood trial in the kingdom’s anti – terror court.
Al-Hathloul’s amended charges remain entirely related to her human rights work and include sharing information on Saudi women’s rights with journalists in the country, Saudi activists abroad, international bodies and human rights organizations, according to Human Rights Watch.
The conviction of Al-Hathloul between Christmas and New Year shows that Saudi Arabia needs to reduce the attention it receives because they are embarrassed about how they treat and should be, said Adam Coogle, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division, said. Human Rights Commission.
“It was always a complete character and a folly of justice,” he said. tweeted.
Since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took power in 2017, he has presented himself as a reformer eager to transform the deeply conservative society. But he also oversaw severe repression of discord, and arrested intellectuals, clergy, women’s rights activists, and members of the royal family.
Saudi Arabia has enjoyed friendly relations with the government of President Donald Trump, but it is expected to have a mature relationship with the incoming president Joe Biden’s incoming team.
During his tenure, Trump praised a Saudi repression of hundreds of top businessmen, officials and members of the royal family at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh in November 2017. the powerful crown prince ordered the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for the Washington Post, in Istanbul in October 2018.
Biden, on the other hand, has vowed to “reevaluate” US relations with the oil-rich kingdom, describing Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” and saying he believes Khashoggi was assassinated by order of the crown prince.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
