Saudi woman jailed 45 years for offensive social media posts

A court in Saudi Arabian has sentenced a woman to 45 years in prison over social media posts deemed to have violated public order.

The woman, Nourah bint Saeed Al-Qahtani, was convicted by the Saudi Specialised Criminal Court for using the internet to tear the Saudi social fabric and violating public order.

In its reaction to the ruling on Wednesday, a Washington-based Non-Governmental Organisation, DAWN, described Al-Qahtani’s conviction as the latest in the crackdown on women activists in the Asian Kingdom following a recent visit by the United States President, Joe Biden.

READ ALSO: Outrage as Saudi Arabia executes 81 convicts in one day

The woman’s conviction came a few weeks after a mother of two, Salma Al-Shehab, a doctoral candidate at the University of Leeds in Britain, was sentenced to 35 years in jail for following and re-tweeting posts by activists on Twitter.

“The Al-Qahtani and Shehab cases underscores a crackdown on dissent driven by Prince Mohammed, the de facto Saudi ruler, even as he has championed reforms such as allowing women to drive and pushed projects to create jobs,” DAWN said.

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