Arrest The Right People
Meet Salma Al-Shehab. Arrested last year for tweeting
Sentenced to 34 years in prison and an additional 34 year travel ban that would start once she is released from prison. According to Human Rights Watch she just tweeted about her family and women’s rights issues in Saudi Arabia. Sentenced in August 2022.
The court refused to say which tweets were supposedly creating an online presence that disrupts public order as they called it. A sentence as long as this one can only be for one reason and that is to use her as an example and a warning to other women attempting to as they say “Disrupt the peace”.
“Human Rights Watch has long documented the Saudi government’s flagrant abuse of the vague provisions in its counterterrorism law and anti-cybercrime law to silence dissent. The broad definition of terrorism allows for targeting peaceful criticism. Furthermore, the counterterrorism law undermines due process and fair trial rights because it grants the agencies of the Public Prosecution and the Presidency of State Security the authority to arrest and detain people, monitor their communications and financial data, search their property, and seize assets without judicial oversight”. - Human Rights Watch
Many might think that I’m anti Saudi Arabia or MBS but the truth is I wish MBS would make Saudi a better place and help bring the country into the modern age. Doing so however must include doing away with draconian laws that suppress basic human rights. I wish he would move the country away from being dependent on oil money but before building a giant wall like city in the desert (Neom), before light shows and commercials asking people to come visit Saudi Arabia we must start with the fundamentals. To keep locking up people and women especially for just talking about what needs to change in their country does not make the country a better place. Not for my sisters, my cousins, my childhood friends and the people of our country in general.
MBS locked up the women who drove for disrupting the peace. Then he allowed women to drive. By the logic of his own laws didn’t he then disrupt the peace? That’s ok, because it was his idea now. He decided to build a wall in the middle of the desert and then the tribal men living there who refused to relocate were thrown in prison but I guess they were disrupting public order too for refusing to leave their homes…
This woman has two children ages 4 and 6 and she will be in prison for 34 years and then banned from travel for another 34 years. Her life is gone all because she had 2000 followers and talked about how she wanted her country to be better.
For a country that supplied 15 of the 19 9/11 hijacker’s I’m surprised MBS is prioritizing picking up a women for tweeting about freedom instead of going after real bad guys. It’s time for him to start taking a good hard look at what his people need, what our women need.
Arrest the right people!
In one of my favorite articles Jamal said “Prince Mohammed is right to go after extremists. But he is going after the wrong people. Dozens of Saudi intellectuals, clerics, journalists, and social media stars have been arrested in the past 2 months”. & “Can we really present a compelling image of a modern society, complete with robots, foreigners and tourists when Saudis, many miles from “Neom,” are silenced? Is this truly “modern” Arabia?” - Jamal Khashoggi
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Elise Evans
