https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ven-34-year-prison-sentence-for-using-twitter
Hey Stevie! If you're going to take Blood Money, ask the Saudis to first release this lady. Footballers could make a difference by speaking up and speaking out - at a minimum you would draw attention to situations like this.
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Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter
Salma al-Shehab, a Leeds University student, was charged with following and retweeting dissidents and activists
A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists.
The sentencing by Saudi’s special terrorist court was handed down weeks after the US president Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which human rights activists had warned could embolden the kingdom to escalate its crackdown on dissidents and other pro-democracy activists.
The case also marks the latest example of how the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has targeted Twitter users in his campaign of repression, while simultaneously controlling a major indirect stake in the US social media company through Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Salma al-Shehab, 34, a mother of two young children, was initially sentenced to serve three years in prison for the “crime” of using an internet website to “cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security”. But an appeals court on Monday handed down the new sentence – 34 years in prison followed by a 34-year travel ban – after a public prosecutor asked the court to consider other alleged crimes.
By all accounts, Shehab was not a leading or especially vocal Saudi activist, either inside the kingdom or in the UK. She described herself on Instagram – where she had 159 followers – as a dental hygienist, medical educator, PhD student at Leeds University and lecturer at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, and as a wife and a mother to her sons, Noah and Adam.
Her Twitter profile showed she had 2,597 followers. Among tweets about Covid burnout and pictures of her young children, Shehab sometimes retweeted tweets by Saudi dissidents living in exile, which called for the release of political prisoners in the kingdom. She seemed to support the case of Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi feminist activist who was previously imprisoned, is alleged to have been tortured for supporting driving rights for women, and is now living under a travel ban.
Two other named defendants, Ali Alzabarah and Ahmed Almutairi, above, are on the FBI’s wanted list and are believed to be in Saudi Arabia.
One person who knew Shehab said she could not stomach injustice. She was described as well-educated and an avid reader who had arrived in the UK in 2018 or 2019 to pursue her PhD at Leeds. She had returned home to Saudi Arabia in December 2020 on a holiday and had intended to bring her two children and husband back to the UK with her. She was then called in for questioning by Saudi authorities and eventually arrested and tried for her tweets.
Twitter declined to comment on the case and did not respond to specific questions about what – if any – influence Saudi Arabia has over the company. Twitter previously did not respond to questions by the Guardian about why a senior aide to Prince Mohammed, Bader al-Asaker, has been allowed to keep a verified Twitter account with more than 2 million followers, despite US government allegations that he orchestrated an illegal infiltration of the company which led anonymous Twitter users to be identified and jailed by the Saudi government. One former Twitter employee has been convicted by a US court in connection to the case.
