Pak Sahafat – In recent months, Saudi Arabia has entered a new phase of dealing with political, civil and human rights activists, and the Saudi authorities have issued heavy sentences against them or intensified the sentences issued.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency’s report on Friday, Political and civil activists have commented and criticized the policies of the Saudi rulers on their personal pages on social networks, and after that, the security agencies arrested them and issued heavy sentences for them in the political courts.
In this connection, the Arabic news base 21 has given in a report: According to Western organizations and mass media, Saudi Arabia has sentenced the doctor and female activist “Salami al-Shahab” to 35 years and the female political activist Noura al-Qahtani to 45 years in prison.
The Saudi court also sentenced Mahdia al-Marzooqi, a Tunisian female doctor living in Saudi Arabia, to two years and 8 months in prison for writing a tweet in support of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, but then she violated the sentence and put her on trial again.
The aforementioned court did the same thing in the case of another Saudi female activist, Israa Al-Ghogham, and increased her prison sentence from 8 years to 13 years.
Meanwhile, the Saudi judicial system sentenced two civil and human rights activists, Saad Ibrahim al-Madhi and Nasser al-Mubarak, to 16 years in prison.
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In fact, before Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Friday, July 24, last month, Riyadh released a number of socially and politically active women in a campaign to improve its image globally, but after the end of this trip, not only once again continued the violent approach of the past, but went further and intensified the sentences issued against women human rights defenders in prison and extended their detention.
In this regard, the Saudi Court of Appeal canceled the release of some Islamic missionaries before Joe Biden’s trip and once again issued their arrest warrant. For example, after his release, Abdul Aziz sentenced Abdul Latif to 20 years in prison, Mohammad Al-Azi to 15 years, and Naser al-Omar to 30 years. Al-Omar was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but he was released and after being arrested, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison again. The Saudi Court of Appeal also sentenced Essam Al-Owaid to 27 years in prison. While he had completed his previous sentence in 2020, the Saudi authorities had not released him.
The Saudi judicial system also violated the release of Saleh Al-Talib, the former imam of the Al-Haram Mosque, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Also, the arrest warrant for Islamic missionary Ebrahim Al-Nasser was increased from 3 months to 3 years and then to 15 years in prison.
Among other long-term detention orders issued, the following can be mentioned: Saleh Al-Tawijri (15 years old), Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Dawish (15 years old), Muhammad Al-Moei (20 years old), poet Wasem Saad Kodeh (14 years old), Mohammad Al-Jadiei (18 years old), Qasim Al-Moei (8 years old), Ali Al-Moei (23 years old), Abdul Rahman Al Mahmoud (25 years old).
In this regard, Adel Al-Saeed, the vice president of the European Organization for Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, said: The Saudi judiciary is not independent, but the Saudi king and his crown prince use it as a cover and a toy to justify the suppression of political opponents and experts.
Adel Al-Saeed said in an interview with Arabi 21 regarding the causes and factors of the unprecedented increase in the length of prison sentences: The purpose of Bin Salman’s action is to increase the level of fear and panic among Saudi citizens in order to prevent them from expressing their opinions at the present time and to prevent them from protesting any of the decisions that he wants to make in the near future.