Saudi Arabian national Salma al-Shehab and 7 other detainees continue their open-ended hunger strike for a sixth day, in protest against their arbitrary detention.
The detainees began their hunger strike on 23 March.
In 2022 a Saudi court sentenced al-Shehab, 35 years-old, to 34 years in prison, merely for interacting with the accounts of Saudi dissidents on Twitter.
At the time al-Shehab was studying at the University of Leeds in Britain. She returned to Riyadh on holiday, only to be arrested In January 2021.
The ruling was issued by a specialized “terrorism” court, only weeks after US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia.
Human rights activists warned that the visit would encourage the Saudi regime to escalate its repressive campaign against dissidents and those calling for greater freedoms in the country.
Al-Shehab, who is the mother of two children, was initially sentenced to three years in prison for “encouraging public unrest and destabilising security”. However, an appellate court issued a sentence of 34 years, after the public prosecutor introduced evidence of other “crimes.”
Al-Shehab was not a particularly vocal activist whether in Saudi or Britain. She described herself on Instagram, where she had 159 followers, as a dental hygienist and a PhD student at Leeds University, amongst other professional positions, and as a wife and mother.
In the appeal, al-Sheehan submitted that she used her real name on her social media accounts, that she often posted pictures of her children, and had a relatively small number of followers, and that she did not therefore pose any security risk.
Salma has been held in solitary confinement for 285 days since her detention.
According to various human rights groups’ reports, women detainees in Saudi Arabia are often subject to various forms of mistreatment.
