UK student Salma al-Shehab released from Saudi prison, say campaigners

Salma al-Shehab, a Leeds University doctoral candidate who was handed a decades-long sentence for her tweets in 2022, has been released from a Saudi prison, human rights groups have reported.

Her supporters and advocates were celebrating the news on Monday but also highlighted the ordeal she had been through and called on the Saudi government to ensure she could travel freely.

The UK-based human rights group Alqst, which has documented Shehab's case and advocated for her freedom, said she had been held arbitrarily for four years "on the basis of her peaceful activism".

"Her full freedom must now be granted, including the right to travel to complete her studies," the organisation said.

Dana Ahmed, Amnesty International's Middle East researcher, said: "For more than four years, she has been subjected to one gross injustice after another. . .  all just because she tweeted in support of women’s rights and retweeted Saudi women’s rights activists."

"Saudi Arabia’s authorities must now ensure she is not subjected to a travel ban or any further punitive measures," Ahmed said.

The 36-year-old women's rights activist and mother of two sons was arrested in January 2021 during a family holiday in the kingdom's Eastern Province.

Rights groups say Shehab was held for nearly 300 days in solitary confinement and interrogated at length before she was brought to trial and convicted for her tweets and retweets on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X.

She was originally sentenced to six years imprisonment in March 2022, but her sentence was drastically increased six months later during an appeal to 34 years in prison, plus a 34-year travel ban, drawing international criticism of the Saudi government.

In January 2023, her sentence was reduced to 27 years, and then again reduced during a retrial last September to four years, with a four-year suspension.

Alqst and other groups published an open letter last month welcoming the decision by the Saudi court to reduce Shehab's sentence in September, calling it a "significant step to correct a gross miscarriage of justice".

'Saudi Arabia’s authorities must now ensure she is not subjected to a travel ban or any further punitive measures'

- Dana Ahmed, Amnesty International

In 2023, Shehab and seven other women went on a hunger strike to protest against their imprisonment and call for their release. The rights groups say Shehab's health had deteriorated while behind bars.

Ahmed said that while Monday was a day to celebrate Shehab's release, it was also an opportunity to reflect on many others who were serving similarly lengthy sentences in the kingdom over their online activities.

She noted the cases of Manahel al-Otaibi and Noura al-Qahtani, who were jailed for speaking out for women's rights, and Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, the aid worker jailed for 20 years for satirical tweets. 

"We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and end their relentless crackdown on the right to freedom of expression once and for all," Ahmed said.

Middle East Eye has asked the UK Foreign Office for comment.