The sister of a jailed Saudi Arabian advocate has criticized a G20-linked women’s summit hosted by Riyadh this week as a disturbing attempt to whitewash the country’s dismal record on women’s rights.
Loujain al-Hathloul has been in prison for more than two years without trial after campaigning for an end to Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving and its system of male guardianship, which effectively relegates women to the status of second-class citizens, requiring permission from male relatives for many life decisions.
The coordinator of the W20 summit, which opened on Wednesday, invited participants to “imagine a world where women’s equality is a reality,” yet al-Hathloul and other advocates were deprived of their freedom because they fought for that dream inside Saudi Arabia, her sister, Lina, said.
Photo: Reuters
“[Summit attendees] legitimize a regime that silences all voices on human rights, including women’s voices,” Lina al-Hathloul said. “Women activists are behind bars, and the official charges they face are for their activism. If women don’t speak out about what is happening in Saudi Arabia, then the situation won’t change.”
Saudi Arabia is hosting the G20 summit in November and the women’s summit — which hosted speakers from international organizations, including the UN and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development — is part of a string of linked events.
However, the high-profile international gatherings have proved a lightning rod for controversy about the country’s record on human rights.
The mayors of major international cities, including London, New York, Los Angeles and Paris, boycotted another major G20-linked event — the Urban 20 summit — last month, in protest against the plight of political prisoners in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, widely considered the country’s de facto ruler, has presented himself as a reforming modernizer.
Over the past few years, the prince has dismantled restrictions on daily life, allowing women to drive, curtailing the powers of the religious police, who patrolled women’s clothing, and mixing of the sexes, and allowing cinemas to open after a decades-long ban.
Yet, critics have said that the reforms represent largely superficial changes to life in a country that is one of the world’s few remaining absolute monarchies, where total obedience to the royal family is demanded.
Loujain al-Hathloul was detained and released several times for her campaigns, before she was caught up in a wider crackdown against women’s rights advocates in May 2018, just before the ban on female drivers was lifted.
“The only thing that has changed [in recent years] is Saudi Arabia’s image in the west,” Lina al-Hathloul said. “There is no place for reform at all. All the reformers are behind bars and my sister is one of them. What Saudi Arabia wants is to whitewash all the rights violations.”
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