News - Middle East: The “Prisoners of Conscience” account, which specializes in reporting the news of Saudi detainees, revealed the massacre of severe sentences by the Specialized Criminal Court against a number of sheikhs and preachers who have been detained for years.

The account said, in a series of posts on Twitter: "We have been confirmed that the Specialized Criminal Court has issued a 15-year prison sentence against Sheikh Dr. Ibrahim Al-Dawish, who has been detained since April 2020.”

The account also confirmed that “the Specialized Criminal Court issued a 20-year prison sentence against Professor Muhammad Kadwan Al-Alma’i, who has been detained since July 2021.”

The same court issued a ruling on Dr. Qassem Al-Qathradi Al-Ma’i, who has been detained since July 2021, with a sentence of 8 years in prison.

The account of “Prisoners of Conscience” also revealed that an 8-year prison sentence had been issued against Dr. Rashid Al-Almai, who has been detained since July 2021. He indicated that the same court had issued a sentence of 18 years in prison against the well-known media activist, Mansour Al-Raqeeba.

The account also indicated that the Court of Appeal issued a 25-year prison sentence against the preacher Sheikh Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Mahmoud, detained since September 2021.

He pointed out that the Court of Appeals tightened the sentence issued against Sheikh Essam Al-Owaid, to become 27 years old, explaining that “Al-Owaid” had completed the sentence previously issued against him in January 2020, and then transferred to the recess in preparation for his release.

The "Prisoners of Conscience" account had revealed, two days ago, that the Court of Appeal had increased his sentence to 30 years in prison. 

It noted that Saudi officials have sentenced Nourah al-Qahtani to 45 years in prison for her social media posts.

According to Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Qahtani received the heavy sentence on appeal after she was convicted of “using the internet to tear [Saudi Arabia’s] social fabric” and “violating public order” via social media.

The Washington-based group added that she was convicted under the kingdom’s so-called counter-terrorism and anti-cybercrime law.

Earlier, Saudi officials had sentenced women’s rights activist Salma al-Shehab to 34 years in prison.

The United Nations Human Rights Council said in a statement that the jail term handed down to Shehab, a mother of two young children and a doctoral student at the United Kingdom’s Leeds University, is the longest sentence ever given to a women’s rights defender in Saudi Arabia.

The statement, nevertheless, came a week before Qahtani’s 45-year imprisonment was revealed.

The UN rights council noted that Saudi authorities have taken advantage of the return to the international fold, following the savage killing of Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, to deepen their crackdown on political opponents.

Last month, ESOHR expressed grave concern over the alarming surge in executions in Saudi Arabia in the first half of the current year, saying the figure is almost twice the number during all of last year.

The new statistics fly in the face of commitments given by Saudi authorities to curb the use of capital punishments.

Last year, a total of 65 people were executed in the kingdom, a slight drop from the previous year that ESOHR attributed partially to coronavirus restrictions.

“If Saudi Arabia continues to execute people at the same rate during the second half of 2022, then it will exceed the record of 186 executions in 2019,” ESOHR said.

Since bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader in 2017, the kingdom has arrested hundreds of activists, bloggers, intellectuals and others for their political activities, showing almost zero tolerance for dissent even in the face of international condemnation of the crackdown.

Muslim scholars have been executed and women’s rights campaigners have been put behind bars and tortured as freedom of expression, association, and belief continue to be denied by the kingdom’s authorities.

Over the past years, Riyadh has also redefined its anti-terrorism laws to target activism.