Rt Hon. James Cleverly MP
Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth
and Development Affairs
House of Commons London SW1A 0AA
6 February 2023
By email: fcdo.correspondence@fcdo.gov.uk
Dear Mr Cleverly,
I am writing to urge your intervention to help prevent the execution of a prominent Saudi Arabian reformer and academic, Prof. Awad al-Qarni at the hands of the regime in Riyadh, and secure the release of two women jailed for their online support of freedom campaigners.
Prof. Al-Qarni, now 65, has been imprisoned since 2017 during a campaign of political repression that critics dub “the Great Purge”, which began when Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was inaugurated as crown prince.
The professor of law was sentenced to death in January for tweets that he had made advocating political reforms in the tightly ruled kingdom. His son Nasser is currently in exile in the UK after being forced to flee the country for his own safety.
The possibility of Prof Al-Qarni being executed is very real. In 2022 Saudi Arabia executed 147 people including 81 people in just one day.
His sentencing comes a year after another Saudi citizen, Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years for tweeting in support of activists calling for reform. The 34-year-old mother of two was returning from Leeds to see her family whilst on a break from her studies Leeds University. She was originally given a three-year sentence, but this was later extended to 34 years, despite no new convictions being made. She was guilty of retweeting tweets opposing the imprisonment of Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent feminist in the kingdom.
Another lady, Noura al-Qahtani, a 50-year-old mother of five was jailed for 45 years, partly for sending tweets, which according to the Saudi authorities were “spreading lies”. Qahtani had followed and retweeted from accounts which were critical towards Prince Mohammed and the
arrests of some detainees within the kingdom. She was also convicted of owning a banned book written by popular reformist cleric Salman al-Ouda (the book in question was not in fact one of his political books, rather it was a self-help book) who is also imprisoned, and of insulting state symbols. Once again, despite being originally sentenced to 13 years, she then had her sentence lengthened to 45 years despite no new charges or evidence being presented.
The arrest and punishment of people for merely expressing or supporting expressions of non-violent political views stands in direct opposition to the values of freedom of expression that Britain forcefully champions in other parts of the world such as Iran and Afghanistan. I am sure you will agree that we must be consistent in our support for human rights, applying the same standard to our allies as well as our enemies on the world stage. While we sanction and punish those countries, we continue to treat Saudi Arabia with kid gloves, furnishing it with arms that are used to undermine the very values we claim to cherish.
I would urge you to write to the authorities in Saudi Arabia demanding they release the prisoners mentioned above, abide by international laws and conventions guaranteeing freedom of expression and desist from further persecuting people for expressing their political views online or anywhere else.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Massoud Shadjareh
Chair, Islamic Human Rights Commission
