The oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been at the top of the list of totalitarian regimes that systematically violate the social, legal, and political rights of women throughout the reign of Saudi monarch Salman bin Abdulaziz and his Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known by his initials, MBS). Although the Western media touts MBS as a revisionist young leader who has purportedly made fundamental changes to the regime’s strict governance rules and loosened some of the country’s former restrictions on women, such as the ban on driving, legions of female Saudi political opponents remain incarcerated without the right to fair trials.

Saudi women are not even allowed to “Like” any content on social media

Although the Saudi regime does not provide reliable data on female prisoners of conscience, international organisations advocating for women’s rights have reported that hundreds of Saudi women have been detained, quite often for making innocuous comments on everyday political issues on social media platforms such as Twitter or Meta, or even worse, for simply liking a post castigating the Saudi regime on human rights.

For instance, on August 9, 2022, Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani, a distinguished scholar at King Saud University’s College of Arts, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for liking several tweets promoting women’s rights. According to human rights observers, such a draconian punishment implemented in the KSA under the “Anti-Cyber Crimes Laws” makes few dare to denounce the plight of Saudi women.

Violence and cruel insult, the result of a simple criticism

Any protest or dissent, in the eyes of Saudi authorities, is tantamount to “terrorism.” Recently, a videotape went viral on social media, depicting female children of an orphanage in the KSA being brutally assaulted with batons and electric shocks and insulted by about 20 Saudi security forces for complaining about their institution’s poor living conditions. The whereabouts of some of the arrested girls are not known.

West’s double standards on human rights issues

The western governments, which constantly boast about their unwavering support for human rights, are utterly complacent regarding flagrant violations against Saudi women. Washington and the European Union condone egregious crimes committed against Saudi women by a tyrannical regime with an appalling human rights record.

Conversely, the EU and the US regularly accuse politically independent nations, notably Iran, of abusing women’s rights under spurious pretexts to impose financial sanctions. Indeed, the single most salient facet of the West’s hypocritical approach toward women’s rights in the Middle East is the enormous importance of Saudi oil and its unfettered supply to the energy markets.

Many analysts argue that the US and Western propaganda supporting women’s rights in Iran and the lack of attention to the same problem when it comes to Saudi Arabia is the same scenario as the West’s claim to support freedom of expression and the press.

As the West remained quiet following the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the eminent Saudi columnist, it remained silent on the oppression of Saudi women because money and cheap oil speak louder than sweet, albeit empty, words.