Six exclamation points marked it on February 10th of this year on Twitter: “Loujain is at home !!!!!!” The message was sent by Lina al-Hathloul, from where she lives in Brussels, and that meant her sister Loujain al-Hathloul in Riyadh. She had spent 1001 days in custody. When Lina talks about the first reunion of the two, it is about how Loujain first opened all the doors and windows wide: “She was overjoyed and showed how she can now do this on her own. It was funny and sad at the same time. Then we ate an ice cream together virtually. "
Loujain has been imprisoned for more than two and a half years, but she is still not free - if freedom is supposed to mean more than being able to move around in her own country. The Saudi women's rights activist will not be allowed to travel for the next five years; Her family was also banned from leaving the country. Loujain al-Hathloul is also banned from speaking in public or continuing to be active for three years. "We really don't see their release as freedom," says Lina al-Hathloul. A happy-looking young woman appears on the screen for the video call. Black hair, brown eyes, long bob, polka dot top. Lina al-Hathloul also laughs a lot in conversation, although the matter is serious.To consider the sister as free would be dangerous for her case and for the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia in general. “So we have to keep applying the pressure,” says Lina.
In contrast to Loujain, 32 years old, Lina, 26, lives in freedom.
When Loujain is arrested, her sister is studying economic and social law in Brussels.
This enables support at a distance.
In Brussels she feels safe enough to say what Loujain is no longer allowed to say.
Lina is the youngest of four al-Hathloul siblings, and the ambassador for Loujain's history.
This goes back to 2014, when Loujain took the wheel in Abu Dhabi and tweeted a video of her driving to the Saudi Arabian border.
From there she announced: “I've been stuck on the Saudi border for 24 hours.
They don't want to give me my passport back and they don't want to let me through either. "
It is the first time that she has broken publicly with the ban on women driving in her home country. It is also the first time she has been jailed for her activism. She is released after 73 days in detention. As a key figure in the women's rights movement “Women2Drive”, Loujain is a thorn in the side of the authorities, who demand the abolition of male guardianship. "It was just too loud and too public," says Lina. In March 2018, Loujain al-Hathloul in Dubai was kidnapped by Saudi Arabian security forces and taken back to her home country. There she was arrested for a few days and was then banned from traveling. In May 2018, she and ten other activists were arrested again.
The family tells how the then 29-year-old had to be in solitary confinement for a long time and was tortured. There is talk of electric shocks, waterboarding and sexual abuse. The government in Riyadh denies the allegations to this day. In August 2019, according to Loujain's circle, there will also be an offer from the Saudi Arabian judiciary to buy her release by denying the torture via video testimony. Loujain refuses. At the end of October 2020, the women's rights activist went on a hunger strike to allow her to receive visitors in prison again. Not only human rights defenders, but also the Foreign Affairs Committee of the American Senate, are calling for Loujain al-Hathloul's “immediate and unconditional release” during the years of their imprisonment.The public prosecutor in Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, demands the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison.