A young women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia has been arrested and imprisoned for having Twitter and Snapchat accounts that embraced recent social reforms but also demanded more fundamental rights inside the kingdom, it has emerged.
Manahel al-Otaibi, a 29-year-old certified fitness instructor and artist who frequently promoted female empowerment on her social media accounts, was arrested in November 2022. Among other charges, Otaibi was accused by Saudi authorities of using a hashtag – translated to #societyisready – to call for an end to male guardianship rules.
Otaibi has not yet been convicted or sentenced and remains in detention. But previous similar cases suggest that public demands for fundamental women’s rights – including inheritance rights, and ability to end a marriage by an abusive husband – have been deemed seditious.
The case marks the latest example of Saudis being arrested and imprisoned for using social media accounts to promote reform or challenge Saudi authorities. Salma al-Shehab, another Saudi woman and former PhD student at Leeds University, was sentenced by a terrorism court to more than three decades in jail for having a Twitter account and following and retweeting dissidents and activists.
Otaibi’s social media accounts portray her as a young and progressive woman who loves fitness, art, yoga, and travel, while also promoting women’s rights.
The kingdom has sought to project an image of a country that has liberalised strict rules governing women, including their dress and ability to work outside the home, as part of a broader campaign to promote the kingdom and tourism. But the government has nevertheless continued to crackdown on Saudi women who call for more basic reforms.
Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi activist who lives outside the kingdom and is head of monitoring and advocacy for ALQST, a human rights group, said: “Al-Otaibi’s cases are yet another example of Saudi Arabia’s empty promises when it comes to reforms. Saudi women still get imprisoned and face sham trials for demanding their rights, or for merely believing that they are now free to wear what they want.”
Court documents show that in addition to her use of social media, which was reported to authorities by religious police, Otaibi is accused of not wearing “decent” clothes. Fouz al-Otaibi, her sister, was also accused of not wearing decent clothing but was able to flee Saudi Arabia before her arrest. Another sister, Maryam, is a known women’s rights advocate who was detained, held, and eventually released in 2017 for protesting guardianship rules.
Khalid Aljabri, a Saudi expert and frequent commentator on US-Saudi relations, said: “Manahel’s case is an example of the hypocrisy and selective application of draconian laws by the Saudi government that hosts foreign Instagram models to promote tourism by posting pictures in swimsuits but jails Saudi women for posting photos without wearing Abayas.”
The government of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has frequently targeted Twitter users as part of a broad campaign of domestic and international repression, which included planting spies inside the company to extract confidential user data about anonymous Twitter accounts that were seen as threatening to the royal family.
At the same time, the prince controls a major indirect stake in Twitter through the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Saudi’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is one of the richest investors in the world, controls the largest investment in Twitter after Elon Musk, as well as a $250m (£200m) stake in Snapchat, according to previous press accounts.
The Saudi investor has not been seen outside Saudi or the United Arab Emirates since his 2017 arrest and detention at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, where wealthy Saudis and members of the royal family were reportedly tortured and shaken down as part of a vast so-called “anti-corruption” purge ordered by the crown prince. Alwaleed denied any maltreatment or torture when he was interviewed by Bloomberg in 2018, weeks after his release, but acknowledged at the time that he had reached an “understanding” with the kingdom that was “confidential and secret between me and the government”.
Snapchat promotes itself as a website where users in Saudi Arabia can be “free to live in the moment and be themselves”, according to a company blog.
“In Saudi Arabia, Snapchatters are championing transparency, reimagining online life as something that feels real, fulfilling, and genuinely fun,” it says. An April 2023 article in Arab News, which is a state sponsored news site in Saudi, describes how Snapchat agreed a recent collaboration with Saudi’s ministry of culture, to help Saudis get “hands-on experience and training in augmented reality”.
Snapchat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Guardian’s request for comment from Twitter’s press office received a reply of a poo emoji, which is the company’s automatic response to press inquiries since Musk’s takeover of the company.
