Saudi Arabia recently sentenced Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani to 45 years in prison after she had expressed her views on social media. This comes just a couple of weeks after a Leeds University student, Salma al-Shehab, was sentenced to 34 years in prison for using Twitter to retweet views of activists who are critical of the country.
There had been a few small signs that Saudi Arabia had been offering its women a few more freedoms in the past few years, but recent harsh prison sentences against women have sparked increased debate about the country’s human rights abuses.
Despite these cases, the country’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, was invited to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, although in the end a government minister attended in his place. The fiancee of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Hatice Cengiz, criticised the invitation and its implications that the UK, and the international community, were turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s excesses. Khashoggi was murdered inside the country’s Istanbul consulate in 2018.
