Loujain al-Hathloul Wiki
Loujain al-Hathloul Biography
Well-known women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was released from a Saudi prison on Wednesday after nearly three years in prison, her sister said in a Twitter post.
“Loujain is home !!!!!!” Her sister Lina hers tweeted and posted a close-up photo of Hathloul’s face.
Al-Hathloul was arrested in 2018 and sentenced by a court in December to nearly six years in prison on terrorism charges, leading to an international conviction.
Local media reported that she had been convicted on charges of agitation for change, following a foreign program and using the Internet to undermine public order.
The court suspended her sentence of two years and ten months and she was due to be released in March.
Her release comes weeks after the reign of President Joe Biden in the United States, an ally of the Kingdom. Earlier this month, the White House said Biden hoped that Saudi Arabia would improve its human rights record, including the release of women’s rights activists and other political prisoners.
Saudi authorities released two US activists on bail last week.
Al-Hathloul’s sister, Alia, said in a series of tweets on Tuesday that the activist must be released from prison by order of a judge, but remain on probation and will no longer be allowed to travel outside of prison. Saudi Arabia.
Al-Hathloul’s arrest in 2018, along with at least a dozen other women’s rights activists in a crackdown on dissent under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), came just weeks before the historic outbreak of a decade. the ban on female drivers, a reform al-Hathloul had long advocated.
The case has been heavily criticized by human rights groups, members of the US Congress, and European Union politicians.
The detention of female activists also sheds new light on the human rights record of the kingdom, an absolute monarchy that has also come under fire for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Istanbul consulate in 2018.
Activism and imprisonment
Al-Hathloul was arrested for the first time in 2014 when she was trying to cross the border from the United Arab Emirates, where she had a valid driver’s license, to Saudi Arabia. She spent 73 days in a women’s prison, an experience she believes shaped her campaign against the kingdom’s male guardianship system.
In 2016, a year after being one of the first women to stand in local elections in Saudi Arabia, she was among 14,000 people who signed a petition to King Salman calling for an end to the trust system.
In March 2018, al-Hathloul was arrested again in the United Arab Emirates, where she was studying, and taken to Riyadh, where she, according to legal groups, was placed under house arrest before being sent to prison in May. She was among at least a dozen other arrested women’s rights activists and was called traitors by the Saudi media.
