HRF Celebrates the Release of Saudi Academic Salma al-Shehab

NEW YORK (Feb. 11, 2025) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) celebrates the release of Saudi Ph.D. student and women’s rights activist Salma al-Shehab from a Saudi prison. Her release follows a September 2024 decision by the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) of Appeal in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which reduced her 27-year sentence to four years, with an additional four years suspended. While we welcome this development, HRF urges the Saudi government to grant al-Shehab full and unconditional freedom, including the right to travel.

On Jan. 15, 2021, al-Shehab was arrested in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, for peacefully advocating on Twitter (now X), where she criticized the regime’s wrongful detention of human rights defenders, including women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul. On Aug. 9, 2022, the SCC appeals chamber sentenced al-Shehab to 34 years in prison, followed by a travel ban of the same length, under counterterrorism charges related to her social media activity on X. Later, the sentence was reduced to 27 years.

“While we welcome Salma al-Shehab’s release, it comes against the backdrop of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 initiative, a campaign to modernize the economy and implement social reforms while whitewashing the regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and free expression. The international community must not be deceived by these efforts to obscure ongoing repression,” HRF Chief Advocacy Officer Roberto González said. 

Al-Shehab’s case reflects a broader pattern of persecution against Saudi women who have been unjustly imprisoned for peacefully expressing themselves online. Another Saudi activist, Nourah al-Qahtani, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in August 2022 — just days before al-Shehab — for calling for the release of political prisoners and criticizing the regime’s human rights abuses on X. She remains imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.  

In 2022, HRF and four other organizations submitted a joint complaint to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), urging it to review their case. In its July 2023 Opinion, the UNWGAD ruled that al-Shehab and al-Qahtani’s detention was arbitrary and in violation of international law.

HRF welcomes al-Shehab’s release but emphasizes that it should be unconditional. Any restrictions on her freedom of movement must be lifted, and Saudi officials must cease their unlawful repression of peaceful dissent. HRF continues to advocate for the rights of individuals in Saudi Arabia to express themselves freely without fear of persecution.

Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.