Radicals say Saudi authorities have been sentenced to 34 years for free tweets.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Dubai, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A Saudi doctoral student at the University of Leeds in the UK was released after a 34-year prison sentence in Saudi Arabia due to a sharp reduction in her activity on Twitter, a rights group said on Monday.

Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two, was sentenced to 34 years in prison for tweets in 2022, a wider crackdown on kingdom dissidents Part of it, because Prince Mohammed bin Salman took over the de facto ruler.

London-based Saudi rights group Alqst announced her release. In January, Alqst and other groups said Sam Xia had been sentenced to four years in prison and suspended for another four years.

“She must now be granted all freedoms, including the right to travel to complete her studies,” the organization said.

Amnesty International also reported on the release of al-Shehab.

“She spent nearly 300 days in her prolonged solitary confinement, denied legal representation, and then repeatedly convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to decades of sentences,” said Middle East researchers at the amnesty. Dana Ahmed said.

“It’s all because she tweeted for women’s rights and retweeted Saudi women’s rights activists.”

Saudi Arabia does not recognize her release. Saudi officials did not respond to the Associated Press' request for comment.

al-Shehab was detained during her family vacation on January 15, 2021, just a few days before she planned to return to the UK. She is a member of the Shiite Muslim minority in Saudi Arabia and has long complained about systematic discrimination in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

According to official charges, the judge accused al-Shehab of “disturbing public order” and “destructing the structural stability of society” – claiming that it originated only from her social media campaign on Twitter (now known as X). They claimed al-Shehab followed closely and retweeted dissident accounts on Twitter and “spread false rumors.”

The rise of Prince Mohammed led Saudi Arabia to lift the driving ban on women in 2018, part of a series of social reforms that have changed the country's daily life.

However, he also presided over the serious crackdown on dissent, while also aiming for power, influence and wealth. The U.S. Intelligence Agency found that he may have approved the 2018 charges of killing Jamal Khashoggi, a famous Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, who denied the crown prince.

Other women were also attacked, including Nourah Bint Saeed al-Qahtani, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for using social media.

Both the trials of Qahtani and Al-Shehab were before the initially established special court trials of terrorist suspects, but have expanded their mission in recent years in the crackdown. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention believes that two women were arbitrary detention.