‘They’ve destroyed us because of some tweets’: why has Saudi Arabia targeted these three sisters? ( www.theguardian.com )

Last week one was sentenced to 11 years, another had to flee the country, a third could be arrested at any moment. And what were Manahel, Maryam and Fawzia al-Otaibi’s ‘crimes’? A few social media posts that outraged Saudi Arabia’s conservatives

In September 2022, Fawzia al-Otaibi was a week into a trip to her home country of Saudi Arabia, staying with a friend near the Bahrain border, when her phone rang. As soon as she heard the male voice on the other end of the line, she realised that returning had been a terrible mistake.

It was a police officer who, in 2019, had tracked her down and fined her for public indecency after she had posted a video on her Snapchat account, showing her dancing in jeans and a baseball cap at a concert in Riyadh. She and her two sisters, Maryam and Manahel, had become targets in a campaign of arrests, threats and intimidation by the Saudi authorities after they had used their popular social media channels to post about women’s rights. For her, the dancing clip wasn’t a political statement; it was just about sharing a happy moment with her followers.

After the fine, Fawzia left Saudi Arabia for Dubai and hadn’t been back to her home country in three years. She thought the authorities had forgotten about her. She was wrong.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Someone said that we should also speak against Saudi oppression so here we go:

Biden admin approves potential multibillion-dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE

ealoe ,

The sooner we can stop being dependent on fossil fuels so shitholes like this place can go back to being irrelevant the better. Medieval opinions with unlimited money, what could go wrong?

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the moderator]

    •
    Land_Strider ,

    Goes from a tangent immediately to nuking millions of people, at least all their livelihoods and culture.

    I get the rage against the above-mentioned medieval approach to anything, let alone affairs of humans, but if we go with the nuking way for these, we can hardly find a country not deserving of nuking, even just taking current/recent things about them in mind.

    PriorityMotif ,
    @PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

    The alternative is continued conflict and death in the middle east as well as continued death or the planet from climate change. I think that takes precedent over the obscenely rich who use slavery to build vanity projects.

    Land_Strider ,

    Good way to end continued conflict and death with this one simple trick. No more bad feels through media if you accept to take this one day/week/month of gruesome coverage! Who needs to work out, maybe just not put more wood to the underlying problems of conflict when you can simply sit in your comfy home halfway across the planet and not hear about Middle East after nuking it?

    Oh, climate change is caused by those who experience the effects the most, so they must be main reason why the climate is going bad? Look how they fucked up their environment, it is basically uninhabitable desert all around already! Those no-good oil-drilling bastards!

    On the topic of oil, we also would like to say that we purchase dirt cheap oil from them because our empire toppled the previous empire controlling them, and we agreed to keep slaving and harem-loving tribes in power and actually make them rich by buying oil from them. Oh well, we don't like them being rich tho, so we sell them weapons to keep their slavery and harem-loving, also shariah law enforcing going, all the while taking their richness back into our pockets. That's how good we are, and how bad they are. They basically ask for being nuked, am I right?

    /s after writing such bullshit inspired by the comment I'm replying.

    Edit: I assumed they are American, but in case they say "I'm not American", my point is moot so let's nuke the Middle East.

    PriorityMotif ,
    @PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

    The oil is in mostly uninhabited desert.

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/abd724d4-f995-4644-ab52-9f85d72b2a1d.png

    grrgyle ,
    @grrgyle@slrpnk.net avatar

    The alternatives are also more likely than getting any country with a nuclear arsenal to attack their energy supply like jfc

    CoffeeJunkie ,

    Dancing in jeans & a baseball cap. Manahel's terrorism offence, uploading pictures of herself with her head uncovered.

    Sounds like Saudi Arabia is a shithole country.

    small44 ,

    All that talk about democracy and human right by the US but Saudi is one of their biggest allies.

    cyborganism ,

    Bruh. Saudi Arabia is a model for right wing Christo fascist Republicans.

    PrincessLeiasCat ,

    It’s infuriating - we’re not happy about it either. It’s something I think about a lot…the hypocrisy.

    Linkerbaan ,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    Only reason this regime is able to oppress its civilians is because America is supplying them with the weapons to do so.

    eran_morad ,

    Backward degenerates.

    Maeve ,

    House of Saud doesn't follow these laws, when will they have consequences? 🤔

    originalucifer ,
    @originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

    SA is an experiment in what religious nutjobs would do with unlimited money. its going as well as we all expected.

    FlyingSquid Mod ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    This photo, plus the part about the dancing in jeans and a baseball cap at a concert confuse me. I thought women were not allowed to be outside uncovered in Saudi Arabia.

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b28672e2-3c2d-431f-963d-99a6420cf024.png

    Anyway, good luck to these sisters and all Saudi women fighting for freedom in the face of repression. I'm sorry they've had to go through what they went through.

    Ranvier ,

    Here's an article with her being asked about wearing the outfit:

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/rebel-saudi-women-shun-obligatory-abaya-robe/

    Also beginning in 2019 tourists are allowed to go without an Abaya, at least officially. And apparently in some cities more than others it's at least somewhat common to see women without. Jedda especially it sounds like? Still very much the norm though.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/female-solo-traveler-went-to-saudi-arabia-heres-what-i-saw?op=1

    Clothes were another concern. Though foreign women are no longer required to wear an abaya (robe) by law, I was uncomfortable not wearing one. Outside of Jeddah and diplomatic areas of Riyadh, I did not see any women without abayas. Most women also wore hijabs and niqabs. In villages and towns, despite wearing a hijab, I still stood out because I didn't fully cover my face.

    FlyingSquid Mod ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Thanks, very interesting.

    autotldr Bot ,

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    In September 2022, Fawzia al-Otaibi was a week into a trip to her home country of Saudi Arabia, staying with a friend near the Bahrain border, when her phone rang.

    It was a police officer who, in 2019, had tracked her down and fined her for public indecency after she had posted a video on her Snapchat account, showing her dancing in jeans and a baseball cap at a concert in Riyadh.

    She and her two sisters, Maryam and Manahel, had become targets in a campaign of arrests, threats and intimidation by the Saudi authorities after they had used their popular social media channels to post about women’s rights.

    This time it was to tell her that Manahel had been convicted of terrorism offences by a court in Saudi Arabia, for uploading pictures of herself with her head uncovered, and social media posts supporting women’s rights.

    Although they were very different – Maryam, the older sister, was maternal and protective; Manahel was adventurous and extroverted; Fawzia quieter and more private – they all refused to accept what they were being taught about the role of women in Saudi society.

    Fawzia’s continued activism on behalf of her sisters – and refusal to be silenced on calling for women’s rights – means that she faces a constant barrage of online harassment and abuse from anonymous accounts, and from Saudi government officials who say she is bringing shame on her family and homeland.

    The original article contains 2,107 words, the summary contains 240 words. Saved 89%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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