تحديث: بعد قرار المحكمة العليا إعادة المحاكمة، حكمت المحكمة الجزائية المتخصصة في فبراير 2023 على الشهاب بالسجن لمدة ٥٤ عامًا، مقسمة بين السجن، ومنع السفر بعد الخروج من السجن.
On August 9, 2022, the Specialized Criminal Court of Appeal issued a ruling ordering the imprisonment of human rights defender Salma Al-Shehab (November 9, 1988) for 34 years and another 34 years travel ban due to charges related to her peaceful views on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
In late 2021, the Specialized Criminal Court issued a preliminary ruling against her for six years in prison before the appeal raised it to more than five and a half times. Although not all levels of litigation have been enforced, this ruling sets a dangerous precedent for women activists and human rights defenders.
Salma is a specialist in oral and dental medicine, a PhD student at the University of Leeds, UK, and a lecturer at Princess Nourah University. She is married and has two children, Adam and Noah. On January 15, 2021, Saudi Arabia arrested Salma, and after nine and a half months, her trial began, during which she was investigated. The Public Prosecution accused her of several charges, including undermining the security of society and the stability of the state, spreading sedition, providing aid to those who seek to disrupt public order, and spreading false and malicious rumours on Twitter. Appeals court judges invoked the counterterrorism regime and its financing to justify the harsh ruling, even though all charges against her relate to her Twitter activity.
Salma was active during campaigns demanding the lifting of the guardianship system over women by their male relatives. She also called for freedom for male and female prisoners of conscience, such as human rights defender Loujain Al-Hathloul and members of ACPRA.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights considers that the sentence issued against Salma Al-Shehab is unprecedented and dangerous, as it is the longest prison sentence issued against female or male activists and might be a step towards further escalation against them. In recent years, many women activists have been subjected to unfair trials that have led to arbitrary sentences, in addition to some of them being subjected to severe torture, including sexual harassment.
In recent years, the Saudi government has arrested at least 116 women, 60 of whom are still detained, and ESOHR monitored the death of one woman in prison. Under the policy of impunity, no one has been held accountable for the abuses women were subjected to in prisons, despite the filing of multiple complaints of torture and ill-treatment.
ESOHR stresses that sentencing Salma under the counter-terrorism and financing system confirms that Saudi Arabia deals with those who demand reforms and critics on social networks as terrorists, in addition to the deep flaws in this system indicated by a legal analysis published by ESOHR
ESOHR stresses that the ruling against Salma Al-Shehab reveals that the recent steps taken by the Saudi government in the file of women’s rights are not serious and fall within the whitewashing campaigns it is carrying out to improve its poor human rights record. The Saudi government continues to practice its grave violations against women activists without any hesitation.