LOUJAIN AL-HATHLOUL

 LOUJAIN AL-HATHLOUL

 

Loujain Al-Hathloul is a Saudi Arabian woman human rights activist. She is a leading advocate for the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.

Loujain was born on 31 July 1989 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After spending 5 years in Jeddah, Loujain’s family moved to France for 5 years after which they returned to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, Loujain studied at Dar Al-Ulum until her graduation and moved to Canada to pursue her Bachelors in French Literature. Loujain graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2013. After her Bachelors, Loujain worked and started her MA in social research at Sorbonne University in Abu-Dhabi.

Much of her activism is conducted via commentary on social media. She was one of the key figures of the Women to Drive movement, which called for the abolition of the driving ban for women, including posting videos of herself driving as part of a 2013 campaign. She also advocated for the end of the male guardianship system in Saudi Arabia and planned to open a shelter for victims of gender-based violence.

Loujain began her activism in 2013 while still a student of French literature at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Despite the great risks her activism entailed, Loujain AlHathloul decided time and again to carry on her mission of giving a voice to the voiceless.

 

She was arrested and detained for 73 daysfor the first time in 2014 while driving from the UAE to neighboring Saudi Arabia. She filmed herself driving and tried to cross the border. At the border, she was stopped. Hours later, she was arrested. After her attempt to cross the Saudi border by car, Loujain spent 73 days in prison, but in what is called a “care home” or “Dar al Reaya”. These detention facilities — prisons in all but name — are for young women or for women who are formally disowned by their male guardians, often for minor infractions.

Reasons for being sent there include oquq (disobeying parents) and disappearance (leaving the house without the consent of the male guardian). The government describes people sent there as "delinquents."

Loujain spent 73 days there, and realised freedom is not only about being allowed to drive, but to end the male guardianship system which allows men to lock down their wives and daughters. She therefore broadened her activism to end the whole guardianship system in Saudi Arabia and strengthen the feminist movement of Saudi Arabia. Loujain was one of the leaders in the movement, reshaping the process of mass, collective consciousness-raising and developing a fully articulated understanding of women’s varying social positions.

Loujain was one of the first women to stand for election in Saudi Arabia in November 2015 – the first time women were allowed to both vote and stand in elections in the state. However, despite finally being recognized as a candidate, her name was never added to the ballot. 

Loujain was one of the only independant Saudi woman voice to speak about the Human Rights situation in international conferences. Loujain believes in the importance of debates and of the participation of civil society. On 27 February 2018, Loujain attended a public meeting in Geneva to brief members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on the human rights situation of women in Saudi Arabia. Her briefing formed part of the Committee's review of Saudi Arabia's implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. At the conference, Loujain was filming the official Saudi delegation and posting counter arguments with fact-checking that she was posting live.

A few weeks later, on 15 May 2018, she was arrested in Saudi Arabia on national security. For the first 10 months of her detention, she was held without charges or trial. Loujain was detained along with 11 other women rights activists since May 2018. She was held incommunicado with no access to her family or lawyer during the first three months of her detention. During that time, Loujain was beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed, and threatened with rape and murder. On her first trial session on March 13, 2019, she was charged with promoting women’s rights; calling for the end of the male guardianship system; contacting international organizations, foreign media, and other activists, including contact with Amnesty International. Loujain could have been released on the condition she publicly deny she was tortured while in jail – but she refused to do so. In October 2020, she started a hunger strike to protest against the conditions of her detention. On November 25, her case was transferred to a Specialized Criminal Court, known as “terrorism court”. Her family was given one day only to prepare her defense. On December 28, the Court sentenced Loujain to five years and eight months in jail.

Loujain Al-Hathloul was released on 10 February 2021, after spending more than 1,000 days in arbitrary detention.

On 10 March 2021, the Riyadh Appeals Court rejected the appeal that the charge of "communicating with external parties" against woman human rights defender Loujain Al-Hathloul be dropped. The rejection of the appeal and upholding of the charge means that the five year travel restriction against her will remain in place.

Since 2017 she has been named young ambassador for United Nations “Global Compact”

2019 Loujain was named in the top 20 of most influential women in Global Policy.

Loujain AlHathloul is the winner of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award in 2019 and the ‘Prix Liberté’ (Normandie) in 2020.

She was named one of TIME Magazine’s most influential people in 2019.

Al-Hathloul was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 and 2020.

2021 she was one of the finalists of the Martin Ennals Award

In April 2021, she was announced as the winner of the 2020 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize.

 

https://www.amnestyusa.org/loujain-al-hathloul-saudi-arabia-detained-since-may-2018/

https://www.martinennalsaward.org/hrd/loujain-alhathloul/

www.loujainalhathloul.org