Saudi Arabia sentences woman to 34 years for using Twitter

Activist Salma Al-Shehab was sentenced on the 9th to 34 years in prison in Saudi Arabia for her fight for women's rights and for following and retweeting dissidents to her country's regime.

Al-Shehab was arrested in January 2021. At that time he was sentenced to a six-year prison term. Last week an appeals court increased his sentence and banned him from leaving the country for an additional 34 years.

Less than 3,000 followers

Salma al-Shehab, is a graduate student at the University of LeedsThe new ruling comes just weeks after the Prince Mohammed bin Salman, fingered for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggito, met with western leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden.

The newspaper El Español claims that on Twitter al-Shehab had only 2,597 followers, and that his tweets were about Covid-19 or pictures of his children and occasionally there are retweets from Saudi dissidents in exile or in support of Loujain Alhathloula Saudi feminist imprisoned for defending women's right to drive. However when searching Twitter for Salma Al-Shehab's name, the account she had registered does not appear at this time.