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DUBAI (Reuters) – A Saudi court on Monday sentenced prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to five years and eight months in prison, local media reported, in a trial that drew international condemnation and while Riyadh faces new American scrutiny.
Hathloul, 31, has been in detention since 2018 after her arrest along with at least a dozen other women’s rights activists.
The verdict, reported by the Sabq and al-Shark al-Awsat newspapers, poses an early challenge to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s relationship with US President-elect Joe Biden, who has described Riyadh as a “pariah.” for his human rights record.
Hathloul was accused of trying to change the Saudi political system and damage national security, local media said. The court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence, or the time served since Hathloul was arrested on May 15, 2018, the newspapers said.
United Nations human rights experts have called the charges against him false and, along with leading human rights groups and lawmakers in the United States and Europe, have called for his release.
The arrests of women activists came shortly before and after the kingdom lifted the ban on driving women, which many activists had long advocated, as part of reforms introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that were also accompanied by a crackdown on dissent and a purge of corruption.
Hathloul’s sentencing came nearly three weeks after a Riyadh court incarcerated the American and Saudi doctor Walid al-Fitaihi for six years, despite pressure from the United States to release him, in a case that rights groups Humans have described as political motives.
(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Raya Jalabi; written by Raya Jalabi; Edited by Gareth Jones and Angus MacSwan)
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