Irish Examiner view: In Saudi Arabia, any form of dissent is treated as terrorism

34-year-old Salma al-Shehab, a phD candidate at Leeds University, was jailed for retweeting critics of the Saudi regime

US president Joe Biden was happy to visit Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — despite Saudi outrages such as the jailing for 34 years of Salma al-Shehab. Picture: Bandar Aljaloud/AP

News from Saudi Arabia in recent days that a woman has been jailed for 34 years for helping to destabilise the regime appears to nail the lie that the country is in any way a reforming one and that its leadership is looking to create a more open and egalitarian society in the kingdom.

That Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two who is also a student at Leeds University in the UK, was arrested while at home on holiday and convicted of using her Twitter account to retweet the opinions of dissidents and activists is nothing short of horrifying.

Sentencing was handed down by the country’s special terrorist court this week, just a fortnight after an official visit to the country by US president Joe Biden. His trip there was preceded by warnings from human rights activists that it would merely serve to embolden the regime to crack down on dissidents and pro-democracy activists.

It has emerged that, on the one hand, the Saudi regime, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, controls a major indirect stake in the social media giant via its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, while also targeting Twitter users in a campaign of repression.

Is it that the draconian sentence imposed on Salma al-Shehab is designed — like the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 — to send shockwaves inside and outside the kingdom? Is the message being sent that if you dare to criticise the regime, you will end up dismembered or in a Saudi dungeon?

Among many others, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights has condemned Shehab’s sentence, saying it was the longest ever imposed on any activist and noting that female activists are often subjected to unfair trials, arbitrary sentencing, and severe torture, including sexual harassment.

It is a sad state of affairs that in Saudi Arabia any form of dissent is now regarded as terrorism. Sadder still is that a married mother of two boys, aged four and six, has effectively been jailed for life for a few paltry retweets. 

The claim she was “assisting those who seek to cause civil unrest and destabilise civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts” and by retweeting their tweets, rings hollow.