Thread by @monaeltahawy

In 2014, when she was 25, Saudi women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was arrested for the first time for protesting the ban on women driving. She spent 73 days in a women’s detention facility and was to stand trial in terrorism court. feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…

She was given a royal pardon but the conflation of feminism with terrorism was being set.

In 2019 after Saudi teen Rahaf escaped and was granted refugee status in Canada, the regime made an ad which conflated women who escape male guardianship with men who join ISIS.

A columnist with a well-known newspaper called for the execution of feminists as “corruptors on earth.”

And a university labeled feminism a “threat to national security...the danger of which is no less than al-Qaeda or ISIS/Daesh.”

Feminism is an existential to the Saudi regime

Loujain al-Hathloul was was tried and sentenced in a terrorism court in December. She was released on Wednesday but she is not free: she is banned from travel and has a suspended sentence which could send her back to prison according to the regime’s whims, hrw.org/news/2021/02/1…

Twelve women’s rights activists who were detained along with Loujain as part of the regime's crackdown on feminism remain on trial facing prosecution for their activism; 4 remain in detention: Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Sada, Nouf Abdulaziz Maya’a al-Zahrani amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Loujain has been rendered - UAE police abducted her in 2018 and forcibly flew her back to Saudi Arabia. And during her 1001 days in Saudi prison, she was waterboarded.

Rendition and waterboarding. The US has perfected used both against terrorism suspects washingtonpost.com/world/middle_e…

Waterboarding. Electrocution. Sexual assault. Threats of rape & murder. For daring to advocate for women’s rights & demanding an end to the guardianship system - the foundation of Saudi patriarchy.

Feminism is an existential threat to the Saudi regime feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…

Loujain's torture & interrogation were supervised by Saud al-Qahtani, an advisor to MBS: “He would threaten her, saying that if he wanted to he could rape her before killing her, and that he could make her body disappear in the sewage system" time.com/5837473/loujai…

Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), has yet to be held accountable for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018--a full five months after the vicious crackdown against women’s rights activists. washingtonpost.com/world/national…

It should not be lost on us that it took the murder of a man for some to finally pay attention to women in Saudi Arabia, be it via editorials that urged for the activists' release or condemning the whitewashing of the Saudi regime. I wrote this in May 2018 nytimes.com/2018/06/18/opi…

Every U.S. administration has been the Saudi regime's best friend - not just Trump. The U.S. has been aided Saudi Arabia in its war crimes in Yemen and the U.S. knows about all the Saudi regime's political prisoners. Hold all US administrations accountable not just Trump.

Loujain is the hero of her own story. She is not a “goodwill gesture” or a “concession” to Biden by MBS. Women are not bargaining chips to curry favour with your biggest ally so that it continues to arm you to the teeth feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-… #FreeLoujain

Authoritarians want us to believe that freedom is given (by them) not taken (by us). And they most certainly do not want us to think for a moment that activism works.

That's why MBS arrested feminists just before lifting ban on women driving. nytimes.com/2018/06/18/opi…

To allow feminists to celebrate that victory would nurture the idea that activism works in the gender apartheid kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So they are treated like terrorists instead. Fuck the patriarchy.

feministgiant.com/p/for-loujain-…

Long live the feminists who do not fear the patriarch.

Long live the feminists who terrify authoritarians.

feministgiant.com