SAUDI COURT SENTENCES WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVIST TO 5 YEARS IN PRISON

A Saudi court sentenced prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to five years and eight months in prison, her family and local media said, in a trial that has drawn international condemnation as Riyadh faces renewed US scrutiny.

Hathloul, 31, has been held since 2018 following her arrest along with at least a dozen other women’s rights activists, Raya Jalabi and Marwa Rashad reported for Reuters. Hathloul was charged with seeking to change the Saudi political system and harming national security, Sabq and al-Shark al-Awsat newspapers said.

United Nations human rights experts have called the charges “spurious”, and along with leading rights groups and lawmakers in the United States and Europe have called for her release.

Hathloul’s sentencing came nearly three weeks after a Riyadh court jailed US-Saudi physician Walid al-Fitaihi for six years, despite US pressure to release him, in a case rights groups have called politically motivated.

Foreign diplomats said the two trials aimed to send a message at home and abroad that Saudi Arabia would not yield to pressure on human rights issues.

The court suspended two years and 10 months of her sentence - or most of the time already served since her arrest on May 15, 2018 - with a conditional release to follow, the newspapers and Hathloul’s sister said.

She could therefore be released around end of February 2021, with a return to prison possible if she commits any crime, the newspapers reported.

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