News - Middle East: A Saudi court has sentenced the social activist, Mohamed Al-Jeda'i, known as Jeddou, to 18 years in prison.

The human rights organization Dawn said that Jeddou has been detained since the beginning of April 2020, when he was the victim of a campaign of arrests, which included political activists, advocates, and activists on social media.

The organization did not mention the charges brought against Jeddou.

The ruling on Jeddoua comes in continuation of the rulings issued by the Saudi courts recently, the latest of which was the ruling on the activist Salma Al-Shehab to 34 years, and the preacher and imam of the Grand Mosque, Saleh Al Talib with 10 years in prison.

Saudi Arabia has toughened its crackdown on opponents and activists since MBS became the country's de facto leader in 2017.

As global calls to hold Saudi Arabia’s leaders accountable – notably over the state-sponsored murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 – have become more muted, the authorities have reverted to their habitual pattern of repression.

It includes the arbitrary arrest and detention of people peacefully exercising their fundamental rights; lengthy prison sentences for peaceful critics after grossly unfair trials; arbitrary use of travel bans against activists once released from prison; deliberate medical and administrative neglect leading to deaths in detention and the inhumane conditions of detention centres holding migrant workers and their families.

Meanwhile the Saudi authorities have carried out 120 executions so far this year – more than double the number for the whole of 2021 – including the execution of 81 men on 12 March 2022, its largest mass execution in recent decades.