Woman Sentenced To 45 Years In Prison For Social Media Use, As Saudi Arabia Intensifies Crack Down

Saudi Arabia appears to be ramping up its crackdown on women activists following President Joe Biden’s visit to the country in July, sentencing a second woman to dozens of years in jail over social media use.

Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani was sentenced to 45 years in jail after being convicted of posting to social media by the Saudi Specialized Criminal Court, according to Reuters. Al-Qahtani was convicted of "using the internet to tear the (Saudi) social fabric" and "violating public order by using social media," according to a statement made by the DAWN organization, a Washington-based rights group.

Earlier this month, Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi woman returning home for vacation from studying in the U.K., was sentenced to 34 years in prison after being convicted of retweeting dissidents and activists on Twitter and "assisting those who seek to cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts."

Multiple human rights organizations have been working to free the 34-year-old mother of two and State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Aug. 22, that it had raised concerns over al-Shehab's prison sentence with the kingdom.

The Back Drop: Biden specified human rights concerns when he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on July 15 – a sticking point hindering relations between Washington and Riyadh. Activist groups had warned that the meeting could intensify Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on human rights advocates.

U.S.-Saudi relations deteriorated following the brutal murder of Saudi-born journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist at The Washington Post, who was assassinated inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The DAWN organization, working to bring attention to al-Qahtani's sentence, was founded by Khashoggi with a mission to promote human rights and democracy in the Arab world. 

Photo: Courtesy of Tribes of the World on flickr