Saudi women activists get jail time for helping starving mother locked in home

Saudi women activists get jail time for helping starving mother locked in home Get short URL Published time: June 19, 2013 01:56 AFP Photo / Fayez Nureldine Share on tumblr Tags Children, Court, Crime, Health, Human rights, Law, Police, Saudi Arabia, Scandal A Saudi court sentenced two women to ten months in prison, along with a two-year travel ban, after they tried to help a Canadian woman who, with her three children, was denied adequate food and water and was subjected to violence by her Saudi husband. On June 6 2011, the two human rights workers Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Oyouni received a text message from Nathalie Morin, the Canadian woman, saying that her husband had locked the whole family in the house and left for a week-long visit to see relatives in another town while her supplies of food and water were running out, according to Human Rights Watch. “I cannot help myself and I have no rights in Saudi Arabia. My children are hungry and I cannot do anything to feed them. I'm fighting to get freedom, justice and fairness for my family including myself,” Morin wrote on her blog. The two bought food and came to Morin’s house, where police were already waiting for them. The women were brought to Damman station for questioning, where police told al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni they believed they were trying to smuggle Morin and her three children to Canada, Human Rights Center reports. After the women signed a statement pledging to cease all involvement with the case, the police released them. However, more than a year later in July 2012, authorities called in al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni for questioning, after which the government launched a case against them. The trial continued for another year, and last Saturday presiding judge Fahad al-Gda'a issued a ruling sentencing the two human rights workers to ten months in prison, imposing an additional two-year travel ban on top of the jail time. The charges were “inciting a woman to flee with her children” and “attempting to turn a woman against her husband.” The women were acquitted of charges that they had attempted to smuggle the wife and her three children to the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh. Al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni plan to challenge the ruling in the Court of Appeals. The same day the two women issued a statement that when the case was launched, they predicted that the government was trying to punish them for their women’s rights activism in recent years. A human rights activist holds a banner during a protest. (Reuters / Arko Datta)