Loujain al-Hathloul: Saudi women’s rights activist jailed for nearly six years

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John Dunne @jhdunne28 December 2020

A leading women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison under a law aimed at combating terrorism, according to state-linked media.

Loujain al-Hathloul is a Nobel-prize nominated campaigner who successfully campaigned to win Saudi women the right to drive.

Her case has drawn international criticism from rights groups, members of the US Congress and the European Parliament amid allegations that she has been tortured in jail.

Saudi news outlet Sabq reported that Ms al-Hathloul, 31, was found guilty by the kingdom’s anti-terrorism court on charges including agitating for change, pursuing a foreign agenda and using the internet to harm public order. 

She has 30 days to appeal the verdict after being sentenced to five year and eight months in prison. The sentence took into account that she has spent on remand after her arrest in 2018. 

A Nobel-prize nominated campaigner, Ms Al-Hathloul was among a handful of Saudi women who openly called for the right to drive before it was granted in 2018, as well as the removal of male guardianship laws that had long stifled women’s freedom of movement and ability to travel abroad.

Lucy Rae, a spokesperson for Grant Liberty, a human rights charity, told The Independent the sentencing of the campaigner, who has been imprisoned since 2018, is an “international outrage”. 

She added: “Loujain is a peaceful campaigner for the basic freedoms the rest of the world takes for granted. In response she has been imprisoned, tortured and abused by the Saudi authorities – yet they call her the terrorist.”

The University of British Columbia graduate, who recently launched a hunger strike over her jail conditions. was arrested alongside 10 other women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia in May 2018 – weeks before the kingdom reversed the driving ban. 

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