{"id":53,"date":"2025-02-11T18:49:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T18:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=53"},"modified":"2025-02-11T18:52:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T18:52:52","slug":"leeds-student-jailed-in-saudi-arabia-for-34-years-over-tweets-is-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"Leeds student jailed in Saudi Arabia for 34 years over tweets is released"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Campaigners have welcomed the release of a Saudi PhD student at Leeds University who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for posting tweets in support of women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Salma al-Shehab, 36, is understood to have left the prison in\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u00a0where she was being held and has been reunited with her two young children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tems - Love Me JeJe (Official Video)\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y_NTooezadU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is fantastic news,\u201d said\u00a0Lina al-Hathloul, head of monitoring and advocacy at the Europe-based Saudi rights group\u00a0ALQST. \u201cShe has not seen her children during her whole four years of imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Al-Shehab was arrested while on holiday in Saudi Arabia in January 2021. Campaigners say she was kept in solitary confinement for more than nine months before she was brought before Saudi Arabia\u2019s specialised criminal court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was initially sentenced to serve three years in prison for the \u201ccrime\u201d of using a website to \u201ccause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An appeals court later handed down the new sentence<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/aug\/16\/saudi-woman-given-34-year-prison-sentence-for-using-twitter\">\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 34 years in prison followed by a 34-year travel ban \u2013 after a public prosecutor asked the court to consider other alleged crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The additional charges included the allegation that al-Shehab was \u201cassisting those who seek to cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts\u201d and by retweeting their tweets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Amnesty International said her \u201ccrime\u201d was no more than \u201cposting tweets in support of women\u2019s rights\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last March\u00a0an open letter was signed by more than 300 academics, students and employees at Leeds University\u00a0calling for al-Shehab\u2019s immediate release. It said she had been jailed \u201con the basis of peaceful tweets\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Al-Hathloul said al-Shehab had had a hard time in prison. \u201cIt has been difficult for her,\u201d she said. \u201cNot seeing her kids, not knowing whether she could complete her PhD. She was originally sentenced to six years, then it was increased to 34 years and then it was reduced to 27 years and then 4 years. It has been a nightmare really not to even be able to trust the judiciary and its decisions<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe is very strong. Salma is a very brave woman. She went on hunger strike to complain about the conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In June 2023 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD)\u00a0found her detention to be arbitrary and called for her immediate release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Al-Hathhoul said al-Shehab was not an exception. \u201cShe is symbolic of a pattern. She was released because of this pressure but many more others still remain in prison for the same charges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The battle now was to get al-Shehab\u2019s travel ban lifted so she could return to Leeds where she is a dental student, al-Hathhoul said. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/feb\/10\/salma-al-shehab-saudi-woman-jailed-for-34-years-over-tweets-released\">(Guardian)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Campaigners have welcomed the release of a Saudi PhD student at Leeds University who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for posting tweets in support of women\u2019s rights. Salma al-Shehab, 36, is understood to have left the prison in\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u00a0where she was being held and has been reunited with her two young children. \u201cIt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[82,84,79,83,80,50,81,85],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign","tag-amnesty-international","tag-imprisonment","tag-leeds-university","tag-lina-al-hathloul","tag-salma-al-shehab","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-tweets","tag-united-kingdom"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Leeds student jailed in Saudi Arabia for 34 years over tweets is released - Tona Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Campaigners have welcomed the release of a Saudi PhD student at Leeds University who was sentenced to 34 years in prison\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tona.today\/?p=53\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Leeds student jailed in Saudi Arabia for 34 years over tweets is released - 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