If a record of sexual apartheid is not the ideal look for a nation that must still, occasionally, placate progressives, news of an extreme example – the lengthy imprisonment of Manahel al-Otaibi, a 29-year-old fitness instructor and women’s rights activist – has at least arrived too late to tarnish Saudi Arabia’s latest sporting triumph: buying up the Women’s Tennis Association finals.
In fact, given that country’s hectic promotional schedule, there could hardly have been a more convenient time for human rights organisations to report, as they did last week, that al-Otaibi whose circumstances were for months unknown, is serving 11 years in prison for the “terrorist” offences of wearing “indecent clothes” (ie, not an abaya) and supporting women’s rights. Her sister, Fouz al-Otaibi, fled the country in 2022 to avoid similar persecution. Fouz tweeted last week: “Why have my rights become terrorism, and why is the world silent?”
