TRIBUNE
All charged with high treason after signing confessions
Ten judges are facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia for being too soft on human rights campaigners and women’s rights activists, it has been claimed.
The men have all been charged with high treason – which is punishable by death – after signing confessions admitting they had been too ‘lenient’ is cases involving state security.
One of the judges, Abdullah bin Khaled al-Luhaidan, allowed the prominent women’s rights campaigner, Loujain al-Hathloul, to walk free two months after she appeared before him in December 2020.
Loujain, who once shared a One World stage with the then Meghan Markle, had two years and ten months of her six-year sentence suspended by al-Luhaidan meaning that – in addition to time already served – she was able to walk free in February 2021.
The Saudi authorities had arrested al-Hathloul, 31, in May 2018 along with over a dozen other women’s rights activists in a crackdown ahead of the lifting of the country’s ban on women driving.
One of the judges, Abdullah bin Khaled al-Luhaidan, allowed the prominent women’s rights campaigner, Loujain al-Hathloul, to walk free two months after she appeared before him in December 2020.
Loujain, who once shared a One World stage with the then Meghan Markle, had two years and ten months of her six-year sentence suspended by al-Luhaidan meaning that – in addition to time already served – she was able to walk free in February 2021.
The Saudi authorities had arrested al-Hathloul, 31, in May 2018 along with over a dozen other women’s rights activists in a crackdown ahead of the lifting of the country’s ban on women driving.
