Help promote human rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Donate Today
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin Youtube
Search
Close
  • English
  • العربية
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • FAQs
    • Support Dawn
    • Work With Us
    • For the Media
  • Founder Jamal Khashoggi
    • Who Was Jamal Khashoggi?
    • Chronology of a Murder
    • UN Recommendations
    • International Reaction
    • In His Own Words
    • DAWN and Jamal
  • Countries
    • Saudi Arabia
    • Egypt
    • UAE
    • Israel-Palestine
    • DAWN's Culprits Gallery
  • International Actors
    • DAWN's Advocacy
    • USA
    • Aid Conditionality
    • THE LOBBYIST HALL OF SHAME​
  • Democracy In Exile
    • About
    • Submission Guidelines for Democracy in Exile
  • Experts
  • Latest
Menu
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • FAQs
    • Support Dawn
    • Work With Us
    • For the Media
  • Founder Jamal Khashoggi
    • Who Was Jamal Khashoggi?
    • Chronology of a Murder
    • UN Recommendations
    • International Reaction
    • In His Own Words
    • DAWN and Jamal
  • Countries
    • Saudi Arabia
    • Egypt
    • UAE
    • Israel-Palestine
    • DAWN's Culprits Gallery
  • International Actors
    • DAWN's Advocacy
    • USA
    • Aid Conditionality
    • THE LOBBYIST HALL OF SHAME​
  • Democracy In Exile
    • About
    • Submission Guidelines for Democracy in Exile
  • Experts
  • Latest
Donate

Saudi Arabia: Judge Abdullah al-Luhaidan Convicts Women's Rights Activist of Terrorism

June 9, 2021
in Culprits, Culprits Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

[PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE. IF YOU HAVE PHOTOS AVAILABLE, PLEASE EMAIL saudiinfo@dawnmena.org]:

Judge Abdullah al-Luhaidan at the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh convicted prominent women's rights defender Loujain Alhathloul of terrorism charges, because she opposed the male guardianship system and peacefully advocated for women's rights to drive and be protected from domestic violence.

"The Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh is notorious for convicting peaceful dissidents and activists whom the Saudi regime views as a threat," said Abdullah Alaoudh, Gulf Director at DAWN.  "Alhathloul's conviction shatters the Saudi government's claims to promote social reforms and gender equality."

On December 28, 2020, al-Luhaidan, together with fellow judges Mufarreh al-Jundub and Abdulaziz bin Dawood, convicted Loujain Alhathloul under the Counter-Terrorism Law of "attempting to change the Basic Law of Governance," "trying to serve a foreign agenda" and "using the Internet to disturb the public order," according to the official Saudi news service Sapq.

No evidence was presented, other than tweets and public appearances advocating for women to drive, her campaign against the male-guardianship system in the country, and her peaceful activism. The judges sentenced her to five years and eight months in prison and a five-year travel ban to start after her release. The court dismissed her complaint that Saudi officials tortured her during the period in which they disappeared her and held her in a secret prison.

Al-Luhaidan and the other two judges suspended half of Alhathloul's sentence (two years and ten months), and she was released on February 10, 2021.

Upon release, she was placed on probation for three years and can be arrested and ordered to complete her sentence if she "commits any crime," according to the family and the official Saudi news Sapq. In Saudi Arabia, the penal code is mostly unwritten, and the codes like the Counter-Terrorism Law or the Anti-Cybercrime Law are designed to crimilize free speech. A vaguely worded accusation by the Saudi prosecution can constitute a "crime".

Two days after convicting Alhathloul, al-Luhaidan convicted Yousef al-Ahmed, a conservative scholar who engaged in peaceful speech and activism, for allegedly inciting rebellion against the state and disturbing the peace of the community. Al-Luhaidan sentenced al-Ahmed to four years in prison and banned him from leaving the country for an additional four years. 

In these judicial decisions, al-Luhaidan enforced prima facie unjust laws that criminalize dissent. 

"Judges like al-Luhaidan are an integral part of the Saudi regime's destruction of independent civil society, " Alaoudh said. "His decision to convict Alhathloul shattered what was left of judicial independence."

Al-Luhaidan comes from a family in Qassim Province in the Central Region of Najd in Saudi Arabia that has a long tradition of serving in the Saudi judiciary. The longest-serving President of the Supreme Judicial Council (1992 until 2012) was Abdullah al-Luhaidan's cousin, Saleh al-Luhaidan. Since 1992, many male members of the al-Luhaidan family were appointed as judges, and some of them later achieved the highest ranks in the judiciary, including Khaled al-Luhaidan, the father of Abdullah al-Luhaidan. The Saudi authorities do not allow women to be judges. In October 2020, al-Luhaidan's father was appointed Chief Justice in the High Court, the highest judicial body in the land. 

Before al-Luhaidan joined the Specialized Criminal Court, the Saudi authorities arrested at least six judges of the same court in October 2017 as part of a series of moves to restrict judicial independence. The authorities appointed al-Luhaidan and others as replacements. 

See the case: Loujain Alhathloul 

DAWN contacted al-Luhaidan via the Saudi authorities on March 23, 2021 to request a response, but no response was received by the time of publication.

***

Tweet the Saudi Ministry of Justice here and the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC here. Tell them to stop employing abusive judges like al-Luhaidan. 

About DAWN's culprit gallery:

Tyrants need enablers who will implement their oppressive practices, even if it means abusing their fellow citizens. These agents often mask their complicity in the guise of professionals exercising their duties in offices, courtrooms, police stations, and interrogation rooms.

DAWN seeks to disclose the identity of the state agents who enable repression and, to make them recognizable at home and abroad. These individuals, whom DAWN calls "culprits," bear administrative, civil, moral, legal, and/or political responsibility for human rights and international humanitarian law violations.

 

Previous Post

Saudi Arabia: Judge Abdulaziz bin Dawood Convicts Women's Rights Defender for Terrorism

Next Post

DAWN Culprit Gallery Exposes Abuses by Egyptian, Saudi Officials

Related Posts

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 01: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announces gun crime arrests and indictments during a news conference at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justices building on April 01, 2022 in Washington, DC. Joined by local and federal law enforcement officials, Garland announced that 12 people were indicted, including three U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Campbell, on federal firearms and money laundering charges in a scheme to move straw-purchased guns from Tennessee and Kentucky to the Gangster Disciples gang in Chicago. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
DAWN

U.S.: Investigate Kushner Business Dealings with Mohamed bin Salman

The Department of Justice and the U.S. Congress should investigate the disturbing facts and circumstances surrounding the July 2021...

DAWN
April 28, 2022
Advocacy

Rights Groups Renew Call for Freedom of Waleed Abu al-Khair on Eighth Year Anniversary of His Arrest

Rights groups call for the release of Waleed Abu al-Khair on the eighth anniversary of his arrest.

DAWN
April 15, 2022
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman attends a working breafast with US President Donald Trump (not pictured) during the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 29, 2019. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)        (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Feature

Nine Prominent Saudi Judges Arrested, Accused of High Treason

According to eyewitnesses who spoke to Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Saudi State Security Agency officials arrested...

DAWN
April 13, 2022
Cases

Salem Almuzaini: Detained, Extorted, Tortured, and Disappeared ​​— Saudi Businessman Implicates MBS's Tiger Squad in Further Abuses

Salem Almuzaini, a Saudi national, has been arbitrarily detained by the Saudi State Security Agency since August 24, 2020.

DAWN
April 4, 2022
Next Post

DAWN Culprit Gallery Exposes Abuses by Egyptian, Saudi Officials

GAZA CITY, GAZA - MAY 24: A Palestinian girl stands amid the rubble of her destroyed house in Beit Hanun town northern Gaza Strip,on May 24, 2021 in Gaza City, Gaza. Gaza residents continue clean up operations as they return to damaged and destroyed homes as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appeared to be holding into a fourth day. The ceasefire brings to an end eleven days of fighting which killed more than 250 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and 13 Israelis. The conflict began on May 10th after rising tensions in East Jerusalem and clashes at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. (Photo by Fatima Shbair/Getty Images)

'Door on the Road,' a Poem From Gaza

May 13, 2022

Why the UAE Wants to Be Club Med for the World's Kleptocrats

May 12, 2022
NABLUS, WEST BANK - MAY 11: Press members holding photos of female reporter of Al-Jazeera television channel Shireen Abu Akleh, died as a result of fire opened by Israeli soldiers, are seen in front of the hospital as Akleh's dead body is brought to Al- Najah Hospital for autopsy in Nablus, West Bank on May 11, 2022. (Photo by Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

U.S.: Investigate Israeli Killing of Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

May 11, 2022

Categories

  • Advocacy
  • Aid Conditionality
  • Anonymous Interviews
  • Anonymous Interviews Egypt
  • Anonymous Interviews Saudi Arabia
  • Anonymous Interviews UAE
  • Cases
  • Cases Egypt
  • Cases Saudi Arabia
  • Cases UAE
  • Countries
  • Culprits
  • Culprits Egypt
  • Culprits Saudi Arabia
  • Culprits UAE
  • DAWN
  • Dawn's Advocacy
  • Democracy In Exile
  • Editor's Pick
  • Egypt
  • Feature
  • Fellows
  • Foreign Policy
  • Human Rights
  • International Actors
  • Lobbyists
  • Palestine
  • Political prisoners
  • Press Release Egypt
  • Press Release Israel-Palestine
  • Press Release Saudi Arabia
  • Press Release UAE
  • Press Releases
  • Saudi Arabia
  • UAE
  • Uncategorized
  • United Nations
  • US – Egypt
  • US – Saudi Arabia
  • US – UAE
  • USA

SUPPORT OUR MISSION

Donate Today

About Us

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) is a nonprofit organization that promotes democracy, the rule of law, and human rights for all of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Support Us

Donate Now

Newsletter

Facebook Twitter Instagram Linkedin Youtube

© DAWN All rights reserved. | Website Design by KRS Creative.

DONATE TODAY