Human rights groups Amnesty International and ALQST — a London-based Saudi rights organisation — have called for the immediate release of Manahel al-Otaibi, a fitness expert they say was jailed for 11 years for her clothing choices and advocacy for women’s rights. Saudi Arabia says she was jailed for terrorism offences.
According to Amnesty International, al-Otaibi was sentenced in a “secret hearing before the country’s notorious counter-terrorism court, the Specialised Criminal Court, on January 9, 2024, but the decision was only revealed weeks later in the Saudi government’s formal reply to a request for information in a Joint Communication by UN Special Rapporteurs about her case”.
The charges against her include her expression of views online, which included a call to end Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system — which, according to the Human Rights Watch, is Saudi Arabia’s first codified law on personal status that “formally enshrines male guardianship over women; the law contains discriminatory provisions against women concerning marriage, divorce, and decisions about their children”.