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She is considered one of the most important activists in the fight for more rights for women in Saudi Arabia and has spent more than two years in prison. Loujain Alhathloul has now been sentenced to five years and eight months in prison by a court in Saudi Arabia after a speedy trial. This is reported by the local news site »Sabr«, from which an employee was present when the verdict was announced.
Alhathloul is said to have caused a riot and called for a change in the kingdom’s political system. He is also said to have communicated with “renegades” and “terrorists” online. Half of the prison sentence, two years and 10 months, that Al-Hathlul had already spent in prison, has been commuted to a suspended sentence, Saudi news website Sabq reported on Monday. This means that mathematically the 31-year-old could be released in March.
Family denounces torture
According to the media report, Alhathloul has made a confession in court. His brothers previously reported that Alhathloul was severely tortured while in detention. The Riyadh government denies it.
The activist has been campaigning for women’s rights and a driver’s license in Saudi Arabia for years. Shortly before women’s right to drive was actually introduced with further reforms in June 2018, authorities arrested Alhathloul and her colleagues Iman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Youssef. Alhathloul himself was kidnapped in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. At the time, observers called the arrests a signal from the Saudi government to activists that reforms in the country are being carried out from above rather than below.
Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the ultra-conservative kingdom has adopted numerous reforms in recent years that open up the country and grant more rights to women. Yet at the same time, the government is cracking down on critics.
Human rights activists accuse the Saudi royal family of only feigning will to reform. On Crown Prince Mohammed, the mastermind behind the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who criticized the government, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
