{"id":6971,"date":"2016-03-30T04:21:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T22:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=6971"},"modified":"2016-03-30T04:21:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T22:51:50","slug":"saudi-arabia-woman-activist-loujain-al-hathloul-jailed-for-fighting-for-womens-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=6971","title":{"rendered":"Who is the Saudi Arabian Woman Activist Jailed for Fighting for Women\u2019s Right to Drive?"},"content":{"rendered":"\nT<\/span>his year has been filled with news of Indian activists suffering in prison. Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Dr Kafeel Khan and others are a few whose ordeals were covered by the media. The lapses by authorities in providing a sipper to the octogenarian Fr Stan Swamy and spectacles to Navlakha were even reported by international media. But India is not the only country where the treatment of activists has attracted negative global attention. In Saudi Arabia, a country with a dubious human rights record, a recent verdict sentencing women\u2019s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to nearly six years in jail has drawn criticism for its severity.\n\nThe sentence was handed out by the Specialised Criminal Court in Riyadh, which was originally set up to deal with criminal cases, but has in recent years been used to conduct trials of dissenters and critics of the ruling establishment. In al-Hathloul\u2019s case, the charges against her were in connection to her protests against the country\u2019s law-forbidding women to drive and its laws on male guardianship for women citizens \u2013 both of which have been struck down in the months following her arrest.\n\nThis discrepancy, where al-Hathloul is being sent to prison for protesting against something the Saudi government proudly claims to have resigned to history, has caused her sister to accuse the regime of hypocrisy. Al-Hathloul\u2019s sister, Lina, who lives outside Saudi Arabia, greeted the news of her sentencing by tweeting, \u201cMy sister is not a terrorist, she is an activist. To be sentenced for her activism for the very reforms that MBS and the Saudi kingdom so proudly tout is the ultimate hypocrisy.\u201d\n\n

As things stand, Loujain al-Hathloul has been made a scapegoat by the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nThe arrest and sentencing of al-Hathloul has once again drawn international attention to Saudi Arabia\u2019s patchy human rights record. In 2018, the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi led to scrutiny that undid much of current head of state Mohammad bin Salman\u2019s push to portray the nation as a place undergoing a social change. On top of the draconian approach with which al-Hathloul\u2019s protest was handled, al-Hathloul and her family have claimed that she was kidnapped from Abu Dhabi and taken to Saudi Arabia, and that she had been tortured, sexually assaulted, and threatened while in custody. In 2019, al-Hathloul refused to retract the allegations in exchange for an early release.\n\nWith connections to global rights group Amnesty International, prosecutors also claimed that al-Hathloul was pursuing a foreign agenda and using the internet to harm public order. However, many international commentators have seen things differently, calling out the Specialised Criminal Court\u2019s ruling in the case. The incoming US President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee for National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote on Twitter, \u201cSaudi Arabia\u2019s sentencing of Loujain al-Hathloul for simply exercising her universal rights is unjust and troubling.\u201d Spokespersons for international groups like Human Rights Watch have also spoken out against al-Hathloul\u2019s prison sentence.\n\nAs things stand, al-Hathloul has been made a scapegoat by the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia. She was sent to prison for agitating for changes that were eventually made by the government regardless. In the fight to advance women\u2019s rights in a regressive society, al-Hathloul sacrificed her freedom.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Saudi Arabia, a country with a dubious human rights record, a recent verdict sentencing women\u2019s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to nearly six years in jail has drawn criticism for its severity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":6972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people"],"yoast_head":"\nWho is the Saudi Arabian Woman Activist Jailed for Fighting for Women\u2019s Right to Drive?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Saudi Arabia, a country with a dubious human rights record, a recent verdict sentencing women\u2019s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to nearly six years in jail has drawn criticism for its severity.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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