Pak Sahafat – Despite the claims of media supporting Bin Salman to make structural changes in the country’s governance and remove some of the restrictions on women – such as agreeing to drive – Saudi women are still in prison without trial or explanation of charges.
According to the report of the International group of Pak Sahafat news agency, Saudi Arabia is one of the most prominent countries that violate women’s rights in terms of social and political issues during the reign of King Salman and the rule of his son Mohammed bin Salman as Crown Prince. Despite the claims of media supporting Bin Salman to make structural changes in the country’s governance and remove some of the restrictions on women – such as agreeing to drive – Saudi women are still in prison without trial or explanation of charges.
Although Saudi institutions usually do not provide accurate statistics of imprisoned women, international organizations active in the field of women’s rights report the imprisonment of dozens of Saudi women in Saudi prisons. These women, who have often commented on everyday political and social issues of the country, have been arrested and sent to prison.
What has caused the international community to worry the most about this oppressive practice of the Saudi government against women is the complete disregard of the Saudi judicial system for the most basic rights of imprisoned women. International reports indicate that these women are deprived of their most basic rights, such as visiting their families or contacting them. Even many of them spend their days in prison without being informed of the charges and the duration of their sentence, and the Saudi government tortures them mentally and emotionally by not knowing the charges and the duration of the sentence.
After decades of struggling with the rulings of Wahhabi extremists in the field of social and personal issues, the Saudi women’s community has now faced a new level of problems: the promotion of promiscuity! In the traditional society of Saudi Arabia, Bin Salman is promoting programs for modernization that are clearly in conflict with Islamic traditions and customs and promote immorality in the country.
In an article titled “Why do Saudi women run away from Bin Salman?”, Mrs. “Madawi Al-Rashid”, the Saudi opposition, points out the pressure exerted against women by Bin Salman not only inside Saudi Arabia but even outside of this country.
In this article, Al-Rashid mentions the story of a Saudi teacher named “Dina Ali Al-Sallum” who, despite fleeing abroad to escape the repressive policy of the Saudi regime, was forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia a few days later with the cooperation of the Philippine government. Despite the concern about the possibility of the execution of Mrs. Dina Ali by the Saudi government, the efforts of “Human Rights Watch” to find out about her fate have not been successful, and so far Saudi Arabia has not been willing to provide any information about her fate to the media.
According to Ms. Al-Rashid, one of the concerns of Saudi women even after fleeing the country is the fear of being forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia. The interesting thing is that despite the announcement of some reforms by bin Salman regarding women’s rights, such as granting the right to drive, go to the cinema, participate in music concerts, these so-called reforms prevent many women from thinking about leaving Saudi Arabia and immigrating to It has not been removed.
Suppression of women in Saudi Arabia is not only limited to ordinary female citizens, but also includes the women of the royal family. Princess “Basme bint Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud” is one of the women of the ruling family of Al Saud, whose criticism of the government’s treatment of women caused her to spend three years behind bars with her daughter “Shoud Al-Sharif” without any trial or explanation of charges.
Heavy convictions against people, especially women active in cyberspace, have made Saudi Arabia one of the most dangerous countries in the world for female cyberspace activists. On the 9th of August of this year, a Saudi court sentenced Noura bint Saeed Al-Qahtani to 45 years in prison for liking several tweets about human rights and women’s rights. According to human rights observers, this heavy sentence issued based on Saudi Arabia’s so-called “fighting electronic crimes” law makes few people in Saudi Arabia dare to criticize the bad situation of women’s rights in this country.
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Mrs. Lina Al-Hathloul, the sister of “Lajin Al-Hathloul”, a well-known Saudi activist in the field of women’s rights, who currently works in a human rights institute called “Qest” in London, says about the heavy condemnation of Mrs. Al-Qahtani: This condemnation is a clear message from Mohammed bin Salman that he does not intend to stop his repression, and that he will increase his brutality against anyone who dares to speak out.” She further adds that bin Salman intends to advance her way of governing the Saudi people by using the policy of “closing the mouths and scaring” the society.
Among other cases of heavy convictions by the Saudi judicial system against women active in the field of women’s rights in cyberspace, we can mention the heavy conviction of Mrs. Salmi Al-Shahab, who was sentenced to 34 years in prison. In the first place, one imagines that this activist of women’s rights issues may have committed a very serious crime that faced this very heavy condemnation, but the reality is something else.
Ms. Al-Hathloul further emphasized that such convictions show the “determination and intention of the Saudi government to impose the most severe punishments against women and men in Saudi Arabia who want to express their opinions freely.
According to Amnesty International, many women activists in the field of human rights face a lot of harassment in Saudi prisons, including sexual harassment, torture, preventing contact with family and defense lawyers, and misbehavior during detention. Become
In 2019, the Riyadh Criminal Court tried 11 Saudi women activists in the field of women’s rights in a trial session behind closed doors and without the presence of the media. Interviews with some foreign media, communication with some international institutions, including Amnesty International, supporting women’s rights, were among the accusations of these women.
Mrs. “Lajin Al-Hathloul” is a Saudi citizen who defends the right of women to drive, who was supposed to be a candidate to participate in this election after the Saudi government agreed for the first time in the history of this country for women to run in municipal elections in 2015. But she not only failed to run for this election, but also spent 33 months of his life in prison without any charges.
In addition to Ms. Lejin Al-Hathloul, many other active women in the field of human and women’s rights, including “Iman Al-Nafjan”, “Azize Elyousef”, “Samer Badavi”, “Nasima Al-Sadeh”, among the most famous active women in In the context of women’s rights issues, they have been in prison for years without any justification of the charges.
Now the question raised in the international community is that the West and the United States, which punish countries including Iran under the pretext of violating human rights and women’s rights, by applying the heaviest sanctions, why the government of Saudi Arabia, which according to international organizations such as Amnesty International has a black and dark track record in the field of gross violations of human and women’s rights, it passes easily and does not raise controversy against them like Iran.
Observers believe that the economic interests of Saudi Arabia for the West, especially in the field of energy supply, are among the most important factors in the hypocritical interaction of the West with the issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.
Many observers believe that the story of America and the West’s defense of women’s rights and their lack of attention to these issues when the issue is related to Saudi Arabia is the same story of the West’s claim to defend freedom of speech and media activists, because as the West in Before the sawing of Khashoggi’s body, the Saudi journalist was silent, now it is silent about the oppression of the Saudi women’s society and the pouring of oil barrels towards the western tankers is not any defense of women’s rights in the Saudi society.