Kuala Lumpur: Saudi Arabia’s criminal court has sentenced five years and eight months of jail to the country’s leading women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who has been placed under arrest over the past two and half years. She was found guilty on Monday for conspiring against the Kingdom and dealing with foreign parties against the Saudi government.
According to Saudi media, al-Hathloul, who initially fought for women’s right to drive in Kingdon, was found guilty in various charges, including the challenge of Saudi political system and creating public disorder in the country.
Loujain al-Hathloul’s sister, who has appealed to the world community to raise their voice against the sentence, said that her family challenged the verdict.
Her sister Lina al-Hathloul said that after three years of arbitrary detention, torture and solitary confinement, they now label her sister as a terrorist.
“My sister is not a terrorist, she is an activist. To be sentenced for her activism for the very reforms that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi kingdom so proudly tout is the ultimate hypocrisy,” she said.
Al-Hathloul, who first time arrested for 73-day in 2014 for driving a car from UAE to Saudi Arabia, was detained in 2018 for campaigning against male-ruled Saudi’s authoritarian government.
Political commentators have claimed that the new development will directly pose a challenge between crown prince Mohammed bin-Salman (MBS) and America’s newly elected President Joe Biden.