By Staff Reporter
Loujain al-Hathloul was arrested in May 2018 along with several other female activists, after making a name for herself as one of the few women to openly call for women’s right to drive in the deeply conservative kingdom.
Saudi Arabian women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul has been released from prison after some three years behind bars.
Within her three years of detention, the international community had been pilling pressure and persistent for her to be released.
The news of her being released was revealed by her family who tweeted on Wednesday, “the best day of my life, Loujain is at my parent’s home,” tweeted al-Hathloul’s elder sister, Alia.
“Loujain is at home,” another sister, Lina, tweeted.
United States President Joe Biden welcomed the news saying, “She was a powerful advocate for women’s rights and releasing her was the right thing to do.”
Al-Hathloul was arrested in May 2018 along with several other female activists, after making a name for herself as one of the few women to openly call for women’s right to drive in the deeply conservative kingdom. She also called for an end to Saudi Arabia’s restrictive male guardianship system that had long limited women’s freedom of movement.
Saudi Arabian officials did not announce al-Hathloul’s release but her family’s statements come weeks after a Saudi judge sentenced her to five years and eight months in prison Dec. 28′
She was convicted of ‘agitating for change in Saudi Arabia, serving a foreign agenda, using the internet to harm public order and cooperating with individuals and institutions that were involved in crimes under anti-terror laws’
