Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul's sentence upheld in Riyadh court
The women's rights activist had appealed her probation, which reportedly includes a five-year travel ban.
A court in Riyadh has upheld the sentencing of prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul following her release from prison after nearly three years.
“The judges confirmed the first sentencing,” Hathloul said in a Twitter post on Wednesday, saying the judges considered her sister’s previous contact with the European Union, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to be a “terrorist act.”
Hathloul, 31, was arrested in May 2018 as part of a sweeping crackdown on activists campaigning for women’s driving rights and the end of Saudi Arabia’s restrictive male guardianship laws.
In December, a judge sentenced her to nearly six years in prison on charges human rights organizations condemned as politically motivated, including “serving a foreign agenda” and trying to change the country’s political system. The court suspended two years and 10 months of Hathloul’s sentence, and she was granted time served to account for the nearly three years she already spent in prison.
