Saudi activist detained; fears death penalty
Hassnae Bouazza
Saudi human rights activist Souad Alshammary has been detained by the police for ‘questioning’ and now fears the death penalty for apostasy.
Alshammary was the first female lawyer in Saudi Arabia and co-founder of the Saudi Liberals. Earlier this year she was portrayed in the Dutch documentary series Sex and Sin. Alshammary is a free spirit, a wonderfully intelligent and warm woman with a great sense of humor.
She has little hope for an honest inquiry or trial: neither she nor her lawyer have been allowed to look into her files. What we do know now is that she is accused of ‘inciting women’, ‘disrespecting Saudi values and traditions’, and ‘apostasy’. The latter indictment is punishable by death in her country. All these accusations are based on her tweets demanding women’s rights and criticizing the compulsory guardianship in Saudi-Arabia whereby girls and women are not allowed to leave the house without a male companion.
Call for her death
Religious extremists have been attacking her for a long time and they now seem to get what they want. Even though the complaints against her were filed at the religious police in Riyadh, she is now held in custody by the ordinary police in her hometown Jeddah.
The police do not want to disclose who have made the allegations against Alshammary, but it is safe to say that her enemies who have been persecuting and threatening her for so long have now found a way to shut her up. Twitter, YouTube and many Internet sites are rife with calls to arrest her, flog and even kill her.
In Saudi Arabia it is a crime to insist on your rights as a woman, but it is perfectly legal to call for someone’s death.
Souad Alshammary is not the immoral apostate her enemies make of her. She loves her country very much and she would like to free it from religious tyranny and megalomaniac clergy who believe their faith is in their beard.
Female lawyers
She fights her opponents with their own tools, namely the Quran and the hadith. She succeeded in breaking the male dominance in the Saudi judicial system by using the sharia law and in so doing she paved the way for female lawyers in her country.
The Saudi King recently approved a law that forbids parties, organisations and clergy to slander opponents, so as to prevent extremism and protect vulnerable groups and individuals in Saudi society.
Souad Alshammary now needs the support of her King and government to protect her from her enemies who are after her blood. These extremists are bad news for the kingdom; they are an insidious poison.
Voice of reason
It is painful to realize that we fight against IS, because they stone and behead people, and that we do so with an ally that does exactly that, but on the sly. It is our moral duty to protest this shocking violation of this brave woman’s rights.
A clear statement was made by awarding the Nobel prize to Malala. Please prove that wasn’t just a hollow ceremony, but that we’re really concerned with supporting brave women who fight the conservative elites that oppress them.
Let’s not abuse Souad to show how perfidious Islam is and let us at the same time prevent the extremists from using her to showcase their power.
Souad Alshammary is a Muslim herself. She is a voice of reason fighting the destructive powers within Islam.
Please sign the petition to free Souad Alshammary.
Hassnae Bouazza is a Dutch-Moroccan writer, journalist, Middle-East watcher and translator. Dutch islamophobes consider her a front soldier of the islamisation of The Netherlands. Together with former MP Femke Halsema she made a documentary series about women in the islamic world, Sex and Sin.
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