Saudi Arabia releases Salma Al-Shehab after four years in prison

Riyadh: Saudi Arabian authorities have released women’s rights activist and academic Salma Al-Shehab after she served four years of a 34-year prison sentence, which was initially imposed over her posts on X (formerly Twitter).

Al-Shehab release was announced on Monday, February 10, by ALQST, a UK-based Saudi rights group.

ALQST urged authorities to “grant her full freedom, including the right to travel to complete her doctoral studies at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.”

Amnesty International’s Middle East researcher, Dana Ahmed, welcomed Al-Shehab’s release but called on Saudi authorities to ensure she is not subjected to a travel ban or further punitive measures.

“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.”

Ahmed also highlighted other cases of individuals imprisoned for online activism, including:

• Manahel al-Otaibi and Noura al-Qahtani, jailed for speaking out on women’s rights.

• Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, an aid worker serving 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 added.

Al-Shehab’s arrest and sentence

Al-Shehab, a 36-year-old mother of two and a PhD student, was arrested on January 15, 2021, while on vacation in Saudi Arabia. Her arrest was linked to her tweets and retweets supporting Saudi women’s rights activists.

She was accused of offenses such as “disturbing public order” and “destabilizing the security of society and the state.”

• In March 2022, the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) sentenced her to six years in prison.

• In August 2022, after an appeal, the prosecution sought a harsher punishment, and her sentence was increased to 34 years.

• In January 2023, the Saudi Supreme Court referred her case back to the SCC’s appeals chamber.

• In 2023, Al-Shehab and seven other women launched a hunger strike in protest against their arrests.

• In September 2024, after a court review, her sentence was reduced from 27 years to four years, with an additional four years suspended.

In January 2025, ALQST and other human rights groups published an open letter welcoming the court’s decision to reduce her sentence, calling it a “significant step to correct a gross miscarriage of justice.”