The United Nations voiced outrage on Friday at a Saudi court decision to sentence a woman to 34 years behind bars for tweets critical of the government, demanding she be released.
"We are appalled by the sentencing of Saudi doctoral student Salma Al-Shehab... in connection with a series of tweets and retweets on political and human rights issues in Saudi Arabia," Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for the UN rights office, said in a statement.
On 9 August she was sentenced to 34 years in jail for aiding dissidents seeking to"disrupt public order" in the kingdom by relaying their tweets. Throssell said Al-Shehab's"extraordinarily lengthy sentence" added to"the chilling effect among government critics and civil society at large".
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