26 Aug 2022 | Opinion, Ruth's blog, Saudi Arabia
I love working at Index but it isn’t always an emotionally easy place to work. Every day my team and I are exposed to some of the most heartbreaking stories of human rights abuses around the world. We routinely have to read the details of toture, persecution, detention and murder and whilst we try not to become immune to the daily horrors – sometimes that is the only way to do our jobs.
However there will always be a case that makes us collectively stop. A person’s story that makes us feel impotent. That touches our hearts. That demands even more from us. That personifies the reason why Index was established in the first place – and sometimes it won’t be the most graphic of cases – but rather one so unjust we cannot move on.
And that happened again this month.
There has been limited media coverage about Salma al-Shehab. An academic, a PhD student at the University of Leeds. A wife, a mother of two and a Saudi citizen. She also happened to occasionally use Twitter to support the plight of women in Saudi and to call on those dissidents and clerics who had been detained to be released. She isn’t a leading political activist or a leading light of a human rights organisation – her PhD is in medicine.
Last year Salma returned to Saudi on holiday and was immediately arrested, tried and convicted by a terrorism tribunal of aiding dissidents seeking to “disrupt public order” and publishing “false rumours”. Her initial sentence was six years in detention. However this month, after an appeal, her sentence has been increased to 34 years followed by a 34-year restriction on travel. For the ‘crime’ of occasionally using social media while in the UK to highlight the detention of others in Saudi Arabia, she will be held in a Saudi prison until she is 68 years old and will not be allowed to leave Saudi Arabia again until she is 102.
This is the longest sentence ever issued by a Saudi court for a peaceful activist. To all intents and purposes it is little short of a death sentence. For the crime of using social media.
Salma deserves more than the words of protest that come from Index and others, although we do protest her arrest and are horrified by her treatment. She deserves her liberty. She has been imprisoned for using her voice, when in a democratic country, to defend others who no longer are able to be heard. She acted in the best traditions of a dissident.
So from here on in, Index will seek to use its voice to raise hers. We will not let the world forget her, as she sits in a Saudi prison.
On the 15th of every month (she was initially arrested on 15 January 2021), we will tell her story. Shining a light on her plight. And in the coming months we will work with partners both in the UK and across the world to make sure her case doesn’t get forgotten as just another case of human rights abuse by Saudi Arabia.
7 Mar 2019 | Awards, News and features
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Ms Saffaa is a self-exiled Saudi street artist living in Australia who uses murals to highlight women’s rights and human rights violations in Saudi Arabia.
Collaborating with artists from around the world, she often focuses on Saudi women, their individuality and autonomy. She challenges Saudi authorities’ linear and limited narrative of women’s position in Saudi society, and offers a counter narrative. Recently, she has also focussed on human rights and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Part of a new generation of Saudi activists who take to social media to spread ideas, Ms Saffaa’s work has acquired international reach. Through her use of social media and collaborations, Ms Saffaa amplifies her subjects’ voices online, beyond their life on a wall.
“I am my own guardian”, a series of murals she created in 2012-13, made waves in Saudi Arabia and internationally. This was a protest against restrictive guardianship laws that mandate women must have a male guardian’s permission to get married, undertake education, have elective surgery or even to open a bank account. She depicted Saudi women wearing the male Saudi headdress, with banners across their mouths saying: “I Am My Own Guardian”.
In 2016, a conservative Saudi man discovered her work and abused her on Twitter. This sent Ms Saffaa trending. Many activists retweeted her artwork, and used it in a movement protesting against Saudi Arabia’s guardianship laws, which used the artwork as the unofficial logo.
Ms Saffaa has faced online threats, harassment, and in 2017, after an interrogation by the head of intelligence at the Saudi embassy in Canberra, her passport renewal request was denied, leaving her stranded in Australia with a de facto travel ban.
With crown prince Mohammed Bin-Salman’s rise to power, expressing dissent or challenging the Saudi leadership has become even more dangerous. After the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it is clear that dissidents face repression beyond a travel ban, and regardless of whether they live in the country or abroad.
In 2017, a mural celebrating Saudi women and the 150th day of the “I am my own guardian” movement was vandalised. In 2018, she recreated the defaced artwork with support from Peter Khalil, an Australian Labor MP. The new mural included the work of 10 local and international female artists as collaborators. On the week of International Women’s Day, she created a mural in Sydney to celebrate Saudi women’s resilience. It features two portraits of prominent Saudi activists imprisoned on terrorism charges. In November 2018, Ms Saffaa collaborated with renowned American artist and writer Molly Crabapple on a mural celebrating Jamal Khashoggi that read, “We Saudis deserve better.”[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”104691″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/01/awards-2019/”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards exist to celebrate individuals or groups who have had a significant impact fighting censorship anywhere in the world.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1551786362908-3b759dfe-64e8-9″ taxonomies=”26925″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
18 May 2017 | Digital Freedom, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Saudi Arabia
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On 17 May 2017, Index on Censorship joined English Pen, Amnesty International and others in a protest of solidarity outside of the Saudi embassy in London to call for the release of blogger Raif Badawi.
Badawi was detained on 17 June 2012 for creating the website Free Saudi Liberals and “insulting Islam through electronic channels”. Following his arrest, he was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes, the first 50 of which he received in public in January of 2015.
One month away from the five-year anniversary of his arrest, Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, led dozens of protesters at the embassy. Haidar has said her husband’s mental health is worsening. This makes her pleas with world leaders to aid in the release of Badawi even more urgent. She has recently directly petitioned, among others, the governments of the UK, Germany and her new home of Canada.
Many activists have been protesting at the gates of the embassy for a long time to show their support. Cat Lucas of English Pen said: “We’ve been coming here for almost two and a half years on account of Raif.”
Similarly, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “We’re here once again to support the campaign to release Raif Badawi and we won’t go away until he is free. Saudi Arabia has a duty to honour their commitments to the human rights law, as their crackdown is doing huge harm worldwide.”
Jo Glanville, director of English Pen, urged the British government to put pressure on Saudi Arabia for the release of Badawi: ,“We are approaching five years since Raif was arrested for doing no more than exercising freedom of expression. We call on the Saudi government to release him immediately and also on the British government to use its very close relationship with the kingdom to ensure he receives the justice he deserves.”
Badawi’s situation is not unique, as Imad Iddine Habib of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain CEMB noted: “We’re here to call for the immediate release of Raif Badawi who is unjustly in jail for expressing nothing more than his ideas and beliefs. He represents thousands of others who are in prison for similar reasons.”
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15 Jan 2015 | Events, Saudi Arabia
Index on Censorship, English PEN and Article 19 will hold a peaceful vigil in front of the embassy of Saudi Arabia at 9am on Friday 23 January in condemnation of the ongoing flogging and imprisonment of Raif Badawi. Please meet at the Curzon Street side of the embassy.
Blogger and activist Badawi will receive his second set of 50 lashes on the 23rd after a postponement on Friday Jan 16 to let the wounds from his first 50 lashes heal. Badawi’s punishment will continue every week until 1,000 lashes have been given. He is being punished for speaking out against Islam and powerful Saudi religious figures on his blog, Free Saudi Liberals, which encouraged political debate. As well as the lashings, he has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 1 million riyals (£175,000).
He received his first 50 lashes in the port city of Jeddah on Friday 9 January. An anonymous witness said:
“A security officer approached him from behind with a huge cane and started beating him. Raif raised his head towards the sky, closing his eyes and arching his back. He was silent, but you could tell from his face and his body that he was in real pain. The officer beat Raif on his back and legs, counting the lashes until they reached 50.”
It’s crucial that we take a stand against the Saudi government’s brutal treatment of this political prisoner. Every week that Raif Badawi is dragged to the public square in Jeddah and given another 50 lashes for exercising his right to freedom of expression, scores of Saudi activists will muffle themselves in fear of a similar reprisal.
We call on the Saudi government to stop this extreme punishment, and to release Raif immediately.
Join us at 9am. Please meet at the Curzon Street side of the embassy.
