In Saudi Arabia, a woman was sentenced to 34 years in prison for using Twitter. She subscribed to dissidents and retweeted their posts.
This is reported by The Guardian.
Salmi al Shehab, a 34-year-old PhD student at the University of Leeds, was initially jailed for three years for "criminally using an internet site to cause public disturbance".
However, the appeals court passed a new sentence — 34 years of imprisonment with a further 34-year travel ban.
The Guardian points out that the girl did not have a significant role in shaping public opinion, as she had only 150 followers on Instagram and 2,497 on Twitter.
Amidst tweets about COVID burnout and photos of her young children, there were occasional retweets from Saudi dissidents living in exile calling for the release of political prisoners in the kingdom.
- In November, the first ever womenʼs football league started in Saudi Arabia, the start of which was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
- In August 2019, Saudi Arabia allowed women to travel independently. Later, women were allowed to serve in the army in military ranks.