By Rai Jalabi and Marwa Rashad
DUBAI (Reuters) – A Saudi court on Monday sentenced women’s rights activist Lujain al-Hathlol to five years and eight months in prison, with local media reporting that Riyadh had faced international condemnation for facing a new US probe.
Hathlol, 31, has been arrested since 2018 along with at least a dozen other women’s rights activists following her arrest.
The verdict, reported by Sabak and al-Sharq al-Awasat newspapers, is an initial challenge to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s relationship with US President-elect Joe Biden, who has criticized Riyadh’s human rights record.
Hathlol was accused of trying to change the Saudi political system and undermine national security, local media reported. The court suspended his sentence for two years and 10 months – or most likely already arrested him on May 15, 2018 – with a conditional release to follow.
Hathlol may therefore be released in late February 2021, likely to return to prison if he commits the crime.
UN human rights experts have called the allegations “enthusiastic”, and have called for their release, along with leading rights groups and legislators in the United States and Europe.
Rights groups and their families say Hathlol, who won to end women’s right to drive and the state’s male guardianship system, was subjected to electric shocks, waterboarding, beatings and sexual assault. Saudi officials have denied the allegations.
Hathlol was sentenced by a chariot court to three weeks after US-Saudi physician Walid al-Fataihi was sentenced to six years in prison, despite pressure from the UK to release him, in one case political groups motivated.
Foreign diplomats said the purpose of both trials was to send a message at home and abroad that Saudi Arabia would not put pressure on human rights issues.
Riyadh could also use the sentences as an advantage in negotiations with the Biden administration, a diplomat said.
Biden has said he would take politics, the Titan of oil and a big buyer of American weapons, a strong supporter of Prince Mohammed, stronger than that.
Chargesheet
Hathlol became famous in 2013 when it launched a public campaign for women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi officials say the women activists were arrested on suspicion of harming Saudi interests and supporting hostile elements abroad. Some women detainees have been released despite their ongoing detention.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), activist Nassimah al-Sadah was sentenced in late November to two suspended five-year prison terms.
Hathlol’s family released its chargesheet after Rath’s case was transferred to a special criminal court in Riyadh, which was originally set up to try people suspected of terrorism but has been used for the past decade to prosecute dissidents.
The main charges against Hathlol, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison, include: changing the Saudi political system, calling for an end to male guardianship, trying to apply for a UN job, attending digital privacy training, communicating with international rights groups and others. Saudi activists.
Hathlol was also accused of talking to foreign diplomats and with the international media about women’s rights in the state, including Reuters, who declined to comment.
“The case against Lujain, based solely on his human rights activism, is a matter of justice and reveals the depths in which he will uproot independent voices,” said Adam Kgale of Human Rights Watch. The Saudi government’s media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Reuters.
(Reporting by Rai Jalabi and Aziz al-Yaqoubi in Dubai and Marwa Rashad in London; Written by Rai Jalabi; Edited by Gareth Jones and Angus Muskwan)
