Saudi snitching app appears to have been used against jailed Leeds student

The Saudi woman who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for a tweet appears to have been denounced to Saudi authorities through a crime-reporting app that users in the kingdom can download to Apple and Android phones.

The user told Shehab that he had reported her on the Saudi app, which is called Kollona Amn, or We Are All Security. It is not clear whether the Saudi officials responded directly to the report, but the 34-year-old mother was arrested two months later.

Shehab was still working on completing her PhD in the UK in December 2020 when she returned home to Saudi to visit her family. A few weeks into her visit, she was summoned to report to Saudi authorities who arrested and tried her for her use of Twitter.

Bethany Al-Haidari, the Saudi case manager at the Freedom Initiative, a US-based human rights group, said Saudi Arabia had used technology to violate human rights and track targets of the government for decades.

The friend, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted themselves, said Shehab would regularly tweet to support the rights of others but believed it went unnoticed because she did not have many Twitter followers.