STRASBOURG, (France): Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul was awarded a top European rights prize on Monday in recognition of her fight for women’s rights in the kingdom, including her efforts to end a ban on women driving.
The Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, named after the former Czech dissident and later president, is awarded annually for civil society action in defence of human rights by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
Hathloul “is one of the leaders of the Saudi feminist movement, having campaigned to end the male guardianship system, as well as the Saudi ban on women driving, and for greater protection for women facing abuse in the Kingdom,” PACE said in a statement.
Hathloul, 31, was detained in May 2018 with about a dozen other female activists — just weeks before the ban on women driving was lifted.
Last December, a court handed Hathloul a prison term of five years and eight months on charges of terrorism-related crimes, but a partially suspended sentence — and time already served — led to her early release in February.
She remains on probation and is barred from leaving Saudi Arabia for five years.
In March, she lost a court appeal against the sentence and the restrictions imposed against her, including the travel ban.
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