Pen used in assault on Manahel al-Otaibi, who has been imprisoned for 11 years for ‘terrorist’ tweets after secret trial
A Saudi Arabian fitness instructor and influencer has been stabbed in the face in prison after being jailed in January for promoting women’s rights on social media.
Manahel al-Otaibi, 30, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “terrorist offences” in a secret trial that generated widespread criticism, with activists saying it showed the “hollowness” of Saudi progress in human rights.
This week, Manahel told her family she had been stabbed in the face with a sharp pen by an unknown assailant and required stitches. Her family said they had tried to report the attack to the Saudi government’s Human Rights Commission, but were ignored.
Along with her sisters, Maryam and Fawzia, Manahel had been targeted with a campaign of arrests, threats and intimidation after posting messages about female empowerment.
Sadly the most shocking thing here is there is actually a Saudi Human Rights Commission
Saudi Human rights commission is like marriage counseling in a brothel.
I’m sure they’re always looking for new human rights to potentially violate
The perfect Honeypot
Eleven fucking years for a fucking tweet…
The U.S. has a lot of fuckin things wrong with it but goddamn it’s nice you can’t be jailed for talking about how terrible it is
Don’t jinx it.
World is becoming increasingly right wing because people spend their time in echo chambers of threats. It becomes more important to stop or prevent a thing than help or build a thing.
There is a point where right wingers stop talking about free speech and start bringing surveillance, censorship and severe punishments, because threats.
Or, you know, be a woman and go outside with skin exposed.
Just a reminder that Trump has vowed to punish his political opponents.
Don’t think this can’t happen here.
Give it about 35 days…
No we are just close allies with countries who will
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Tell that to Assange, Snowden, and pals
Sharing classified material != Criticism of the government
Saudi progress has been just PR, eg. Black Panther in cinema, women driving. Then they chop up a journalist in Turkey, ooops.
MBS is a dictator, and his country is a shithole in the desert.
So when Saudi Arabia heads up the UN committee on human rights, does the UN think that does anything except make them look like complete buffoons?
Saudi progress in human rights, unicorns and other fables.
Right wing woman haters are the same the world around.
The worst part about the world order after WW1 is when the British and French fucked over their Arab allies with the Sykes Picot agreement that screwed up the middle east, and how they betrayed them that allowed the Saudis to take over Arabia.
The world would have been a very different place if the Hashimites took over Arabia. The whole Middle East would have been like Jordan, stable, peaceful, low crime, and wealthy. Also women have a hell of a lot more rights and being gay is legal.
But we HAD to live in our time line and have idiots draw borders with rulers on paper without any regard for what will happen.
I’m all for putting some blame on the West, but the responsibility for the human rights abuses in these countries currently lies much more with their rulers than anyone else. And they are not just “right wing” by western standards, as there is also virtually no “left wing” over there that I know of by the same standards. I think that resorting to a leftie “colonialism bad” and “right wing bad” argument waves away the role of religion and local culture. It is, in essence, a very western critique I feel. Far from being an expert on this myself, just my 2c.
Everything about this story is fucking disgusting.
Par for the course for an alarming number of modern Muslim dominant countries.
someone misunderstood the way in which a pen is mightier than the sword.
As a lesson to every self-respecting woman: leave that country as soon as you reach an age of independence.
I didn’t think women were ever independent in Saudi Arabia, but were basically owned by their closest male relative?
EDIT:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/08/saudi-arabia-law-enshrines-male-guardianship
You misspelled ‘have their modesty protected’
I heard a joke from a Saudi once where he said that everyone expected the antichrist to jump out of MBS’s palace.
It was a joke because if he had gotten caught saying that by the government, he’d probably be executed.
Got lots of stories of people who criticized KSA abroad in a completely different country, and then got arrested while traveling in or through KSA. Naturally, their respective embassies treated it as a non issue, and they would reappear months later with their mouth zipped shut.
Not a middle east thing, not a muslim thing. A conservative thing.
It’s an any region or religion that enables conservatism thing.
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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/may/07/family-three-sisters-saudi-arabia-fawzia-manahel-mariem-al-otaibi
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/oct/02/saudi-arabia-women-human-rights-influencer-manahel-al-otaibi-stabbed-face-abuse-prison
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde23/8490/2024/en/#:~:text=On%209%20January%202024%20Saudi,offences%E2%80%9D%20in%20a%20secret%20trial.
