A Saudi student from the University of Leedswho had returned home to the Gulf kingdom for a vacation, she was sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists. The Guardian reported this, recalling how the ruling of the Saudi special anti-terrorism court came a few weeks after the visit of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to Saudi Arabia.
Salma al-Shehab, 34, a mother of two small children, was initially sentenced to three years in prison for using a website to “cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security”. But in recent days, an appeals court issued the new sentence – 34 years in prison plus 34 years of banning travel abroad – after a prosecutor asked judges to consider other alleged crimes.
According to a translation of the court proceedings, Shehab was also accused of “helping those who try to cause public unrest and destabilize civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts” and retweeting their ‘tweets’. It is believed that the woman can ask for a new appeal. The case, the British newspaper points out, also marks the latest example of how the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, targeted Twitter users in his crackdown campaign.