human rights defender

Nourah Al-Qahtani

Actions and Campaigns

HRD's year of birth

1972

HRD's Gender

Woman

Type of HRD

  • Journalist/Blogger

HRD's thematic area of engagement

  • Civil and political rights

Current Status

In prison (sentenced)

HRD's bio and work

Nourah Al-Qahtani is a mother of five daughters who used Twitter to show solidarity with political prisoners and call for their release.

Detained since

Apr 7, 2021

Charge(s)

  • Creating disturbances
  • Subversion
  • Terrorism

Sentence

45 years in prison

Latitude: 23.234615246688765

Longitude: 44.45068359375001

Geolocation of detention

Country or area of detention

Region of detention

  • Asia: Western Asia

Allegations / reports of ill-treatment

Not much has been known about Al-Qahtani’s conditions of arrest, custody and pre-trial detention. But upon intial court order, Al-Qahtani had her phone and sim card confiscated and both of her Twitter accounts shut down, in accordance with article 58 of the Counter-Terrorism Law. The court further ordered that a book in her possession, authored by detained Saudi scholar and prisoner of conscience Salman Al-Odah, to be confiscated.

Recent case update / evolution

On February 22, 2022, Al-Qahtani was sentenced to 13 years in prison, with half of the sentence suspended, by the SCC, based on articles 43 and 46 of Law on Combatting Terrorism Crimes and its Financing, and to a 13-year travel ban, based on article 53(1) of the same Law. On March 22, 2022, prosecutors filed an appeal of Al-Qahtani's sentence, in which they levied additional charges, including article 6 of the Anti-Cybercrime Law, which prohibits storing materials impinging on public order and religious values, and articles 30, 34, 35, 38, 43, 44 and 57 of the Anti-Terrorism Law. On August 9, 2022, Al-Qahtani was sentenced to 45 years in prison by Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal. The judges of the Specialised Criminal Court of Appeal upheld the initial sentence and further sentenced Al-Qahtani to a 45-year travel ban, under article 53 of the Counter-Terrorism Law.

As of September 2024, Al-Qahtani is undergoing retrial.

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