On her personal page of the social network Twitter, she had pinned at the top of her messages a wish to “freedom to prisoners of conscience and to every oppressed person in the world”. On August 9, Salma Al-Chehab, a 34-year-old doctoral student in medicine, was sentenced to thirty-four years in prison, followed by a ban on leaving Saudi territory for the same period. His crime: having written or shared messages of support for women in the kingdom, ruled with an iron fist by Prince Mohammed Ben Salman.
This surreal sentence is the longest ever imposed on a women’s rights defender in Saudi Arabia. And, once again, this conviction was preceded by arbitrary detention and ill-treatment.
In January 2021, this mother of two young children, enrolled at the University of Leeds, in the United Kingdom, was arrested while on vacation in Saudi Arabia. During interrogations, Salma Al-Chehab was accused of messages of support for Loujain Al-Hathloul, an activist known for her fight for the right of women to drive in the kingdom, who spent nearly three years in jail. Or to have watched videos of blogger and dissident Omar Abdulaziz, a relative of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, assassinated in October 2018 inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul by a Saudi commando.
Abuse, threats and sectarian harassment
Salma Al-Chehab was sentenced in June 2022 to six years in prison at first instance for supporting terrorism and disturbing public order. Accusations she vigorously rejected: “Your Honor, I wrote this memoir to explain the injustice I suffered. I hope God will assist you and help you take responsibility for delivering justice and protecting the weak from injustice”she wrote to the court, shortly before this first conviction.
In this document, transmitted to the World by The Freedom Initiative, a US-based organization that defends prisoners of conscience in the Middle East and North Africa, Salma Al-Chehab claims to have been the victim of abuse, threats and sectarian harassment during her detention and during interrogations, evoking a “subjection to torture and inhuman treatment”.
The academic, who did not have access to a lawyer after his arrest, was kept in solitary confinement for thirteen days, “under the direction of an investigator who [l]deprived of the first visit of [s]a family – the 70e day after [s]we’re arresting”. She was detained for 285 days, before being brought before a court. “I should have been returned to justice or released after 180 days”she reminded her judges, referring them to Saudi law.
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