The family of Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul announced her release today, Wednesday, after more than 1,000 days of detention in pre-trial custody and a court sentence of five years and eight months for "incitement to change the system" and "serving foreign entities" in a case that garnered international attention.
Her sister Lina tweeted, "Loujain has been released," adding in English that Loujain "is home." She accompanied the post with a close-up photo of Loujain's face. Loujain al-Hathloul, born on July 31, 1989, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the country's women rights activists, focusing her activism on three areas: ending the restrictive male guardianship system, allowing women to drive, and establishing an organization to support women fleeing domestic violence, including founding a shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
Loujain was arrested by state security forces on May 15, 2018, and held in solitary confinement cut off from the outside world for 35 days before she was able to contact her family. Notably, on September 26, 2017, a royal decree announced that the government would allow women to drive starting in June 2018, and she received a request from an unidentified person from the royal court that week asking her not to comment on the Saudi decision to allow women to drive, according to her family. Nevertheless, on September 26, 2017, Loujain tweeted a single word: "Thank God."
According to court documents filed by Loujain al-Hathloul, she was detained by Abu Dhabi police on April 9, 2019, while studying in the country and handed over to unidentified forces who transported her on a private Saudi plane to Riyadh. Saudi security forces held her briefly in custody, released her on March 15, and placed her on a travel ban, only to arrest her again on May 15, 2018. At the same time, unidentified security elements kidnapped her then-husband Fahd al-Batiti in Amman, Jordan, and transported him to Riyadh on a private plane.
According to Loujain's family, state security forces, led by Major General Salah al-Jutaili, raided Loujain's home in Riyadh on May 15, 2018, where she was living with her then-husband Fahd al-Batiti. After her arrest, she was sent to the General Investigation Prison in Al-Ha'ir in Riyadh and was held there for several hours before being transferred to the General Investigation Prison in Dhahban, Jeddah, under the supervision of Dhahban Director Major Adel al-Sabhi.
The family's statements indicated that the officials at the time of her arrest failed to provide any memorandum or legal order authorizing her detention, and the officers who executed the arrest neglected to provide verbal confirmation of any laws alleged to have been violated that would justify her arrest. The Saudi Attorney General, Saud al-Muajab, officially charged her on March 13, 2019, nearly ten months after her arrest. Eleven of the twelve charges against her were vague and did not indicate any legal violation; those included "incitement to change the political system" and "participation in calls for women's rights against the country's law."
The last charge fell under the "Anti-Cyber Crimes Law," alleging that she used social media to call for the abolition of male guardianship and equality in rights for women. The Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh issued a preliminary ruling rejecting al-Hathloul's claim of being subjected to torture and harassment while in prison on security grounds. The court affirmed that "it was not proven that the detainee was subjected to torture or mistreatment," noting that it "examined evidence and testimonies from the prosecution and prison officials proving the falsehood of her claims of torture or harassment." The court then granted Loujain a month to file her objection to the preliminary ruling.
Lina and Alia, Loujain's sisters, rejected the ruling in tweets on their Twitter accounts without announcing whether they would appeal it. Ali al-Dibaisi, chairman of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (NGO), tweeted, "A defenseless woman (referring to Loujain) is besieged and conspired against by the most important state institutions, and from her cell, she is the strongest, and without saying a word, the world believes her, while you are the liars."
In August 2019, Saudi state security officials offered to release Loujain if she recorded a video denying her torture claims. On December 28, 2020, the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh convicted her and sentenced her to five years and eight months in prison, with half of this sentence suspended.
