HIGHLIGHTS
• Loujain al-Hathloul refused an offer of freedom
• It was in exchange for recording a videotaped statement
• She was told to testify she had not been tortured, her siblings said
Loujain al-Hathloul, an imprisoned women's rights activist in Saudi Arabia, refused an offer of freedom in exchange for recording a videotaped statement testifying that she had not been tortured, her siblings said this week.
Hathloul, one of Saudi Arabia's most prominent women's rights advocates, has been jailed for more than a year on charges that human rights groups have deemed baseless. She and other imprisoned activists have said they were tortured by Saudi authorities while in custody. Saudi Arabia has denied abusing detainees.
Loujain's brother, Walid al-Hathloul, said Saudi officials recently visited her in prison. They "asked her to sign on a document where she will appear on video to deny the torture and harassment. That was part of a deal to release her," he wrote on Twitter.
"She immediately ripped the document," he added.
The development is the latest in a case that has drawn attention to the kingdom's human rights record nearly a year after the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime. Saudi Arabia continues to jail women's rights activists even as it moves toward relaxing restrictive laws.
Hathloul rose to global prominence several years ago as an advocate for women's rights to drive and to move freely through the conservative gulf kingdom without male guardianship. She was arrested in May 2018 amid a crackdown on dissidents.
His sister had considered an earlier demand by authorities that she sign a written statement that she hadn't been tortured, Walid Hathloul said, but she refused a videotaped statement.
She reportedly told officials that by proposing the deal, "you're simply trying [to] defend Saud Al-Qahtani who was overseeing the torture," Walid Hathloul wrote, naming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's senior adviser, who was also implicated in Khashoggi's killing.
A Saudi government spokesman declined to comment.
Hathloul's family has spoken out about the torture and sexual harassment that they say she has suffered in prison.
Her sister Alia al-Hathloul wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times in January that Hathloul had told their parents during a rare visit that she had been tortured between May and August 2018, a period when she was not allowed any visitors.
"She said she had been held in solitary confinement, beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed and threatened with rape and murder. My parents then saw that her thighs were blackened by bruises," Alia Hathloul wrote.
Hathloul's sisters repeated those allegations on Twitter this week.