This Sunday, followers of our social media feeds will note that we are only posting about a single subject – the University of Leeds PhD student Salma al-Shehab. Salma is currently serving a 34-year jail sentence in her native Saudi Arabia simply for tweeting her support for prisoners of conscience in the country and calling for better women’s rights. Following the jail sentence, Salma will also be prevented from travel for another 34 years.

Salma, who was studying for a PhD in oral and human health, was arrested on 15 January 2021 after going back to Saudi Arabia to spend the holiday with her husband and two children, Adam and Noah. It is understood she was planning to return to the UK with her family.

Salma was questioned for almost a year before being charged by the Specialised Criminal Court under various parts of the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law and the Anti-Cybercrime Law for “supporting those seeking to disrupt public order, undermining the safety of the general public and stability of the state, and publishing false and tendentious rumours on Twitter”.

She was initially handed a six-year sentence last year but on appeal this was increased to 34 years, including a discretionary five years added by the judge. She has also been slapped with a travel ban for a further 34 years following her sentence.

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GC4HR) says the sentence is the longest ever given to a peaceful activist.

Index on Censorship is working with ALQST for Human Rights to re-focus international attention on Salma’s case.

In September, ALQST sent an open letter signed by NGOs and 400 academics to then-prime minister Liz Truss and foreign secretary James Cleverly to raise awareness of this inhumane sentence. Index on Censorship sent a further letter to the UK Foreign Secretary signed by other human rights organisations in October 2022. 

Salma was arrested and sentenced for standing in solidarity with imprisoned human rights defenders, such as Loujain al-Hathloul. Now we must stand in solidarity with her. This Sunday, 15 January, marks the two-year anniversary of her arrest. On that day, the two organisations will initiate a Twitter storm. There are two ways to take part.

The first is to tweet the following from your own account, attaching the campaign graphic here. 

Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison for tweeting in support of women human rights defenders in #SaudiArabia. Two years on from her arrest we stand in solidarity with her and demand her release #FreeSalma. Join the campaign >> https://www.indexoncensorship.org/freesalma

The second is to quote-tweet Salma’s texts. It is our belief that what she published in her posts does not constitute a crime and we encourage you to post her original words along with a quote tweet to stand in solidarity with her.

To quote-tweet, click on the tweet link in the table below, click on the retweet button and choose to do a quote-tweet. You can use our suggested covering text from the table below or use your own. Please remember to include the hashtag #FreeSalma.

Remember that we are running this campaign on Sunday 15 January. It is possible to schedule your quote tweet by clicking the calendar icon in Twitter. Thank you for your support in this important campaign.