ECDHR in Conversation

Please note that this episode mentions torture.

Lina Al Hathloul is a Saudi activist based in Belgium who has been tirelessly campaigning for the unconditional release of her sister Loujain. Lina’s activism also includes raising broader issues regarding the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia and collaborating with NGOs. She is a member of the NAAS, the National Assembly Party.

In this last episode of the season, ECDHR in Conversation with Saudi Women, Lina talks honestly about her experience growing up in Saudi Arabia from a privileged position.

She talks about why she feels obliged to stay in Belgium and describes the Saudi Arabia she would like to go back to. Lina explains the circumstances surrounding the arrest of her sister, Loujain, and why these events sparked her own activism.

Lina is a vocal campaigner for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and in this interview highlights the contradictions in the way Saudi women are treated in society and the judicial system.

If you would like to learn more about the fight for the release of her sister Loujain, you can check out this website.

If you would like to get a better understanding or deepen your knowledge on Saudi Arabia, especially on the topic of women's rights, check out our list of recommended readings here.

Music credits: Blur And Coalesce by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

Hala Al Dosari is a scholar and activist from Saudi Arabia now based in the United States. Her writings and research explore the social determinants of women’s health, violence against women, and women’s rights and human rights across the Arab Gulf States. She serves as an advisory board member for Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa region and the Gulf Center for Human Rights.

In today’s special episode, made in collaboration with WHRDMENA Coalition, Amal will interview Hala about her experience in Saudi Arabia.

Hala will open up from how was growing up in the 80s, at a time where there was enforced gender segregation in public places as well as in educational places, to what motivated her to become an activist in favor of gender equality in the country.

She will talk about the campaigns she’s been part of, the origin of the campaign against the driving ban, but also about the educational limits and professional barriers that she as a woman faced in Saudi Arabia.

If you would like to read some of Hala’s work, check out her blog here (Arabic).

If you would like to get a better understanding or deepen your knowledge on Saudi Arabia, especially on the topic of women's rights, check out our list of recommended readings here.

Music credits: Blur And Coalesce by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

Bethany Al Haidiri is a PhD researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights and Saudi officer at Freedom Initiative, a US human rights organisation focusing on political prisoners in the Arab World. Bethany has spent most of her adult life working in countries throughout Africa and the Middle East and has published numerous articles on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia where she lived herself for 8 years.

In today’s episode, Bethany will talk about her own experience in the country; an experience that eventually changed her life. Starting as a teacher in a Saudi school, becoming the wife of a Saudi man and mother of a Saudi girl, Bethany will talk about the double discrimination she faced in the Saudi courts, as a woman and a foreigner. She will also expose the kafala system, or sponsorship system, which she interestingly compares to the male guardianship system.

Finally, Bethany’s personal experience has led her to work with women facing a similar situation  uncovering a reality made of women trapped and enslaved by its discriminatory regulations.

If you would like to know more about Bethany’s story and how you can help her and her daughter: check out her page here.

If you would like to get a better understanding or deepen your knowledge on Saudi Arabia, especially on the topic of women's rights, check out our list of recommended readings here.

Music credits: Blur And Coalesce by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

Sahar Al Faifi is a molecular geneticist by training, and community activist by passion. Sahar is known for her activism in anti-racism and her outspoken campaigns against Islamophobia in the UK. She is also a blogger at the Huffington Post and has written for the Independent.

In today’s episode we will talk about Sahar’s experience as a Saudi woman, and how her activism now links back to her Saudi origins. Sahar in fact moved to Cardiff at a young age and studied at Cardiff University where she held the leadership role of a national Muslim students organisations.

Sahar, who describes herself as an Arab, as a Welsh, as a Muslim, as a woman, without any kind of conflict among these several identities, decided to speak up, and use what she considers a position of privilege, being a Saudi woman living abroad, to talk about her country.

Inspired by her dad at an early age, in this episode she will talk about the roots of what she defines as anti-Islamic practices in Saudi Arabia, and how several activists around the globe, now reunited under the vessel of the National Assembly Party, are dreaming of a democratic country.

If you would like to get a better understanding or deepen your knowledge on Saudi Arabia, especially on the topic of women's rights, check out our list of recommended readings here.

Music credits: Blur And Coalesce by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

Shoaa Al Zahrani is an activist who works to expose the reality of women’s condition in Saudi Arabia, fighting the false image that reforms are transforming the lives of Saudi Women. She is a Saudi refugee living in Canada and also a member of the National Assembly Party.

In the first episode of ECDHR in conversation with Saudi women, Shoaa will talk about her own experience, from growing up in a conservative family in Saudi Arabia and all the difficulties that resulted from that, to the inability to perform daily activities without a male guardian.

Shoaa’s frustration is tangible when talking about the discrimination that women regularly face in the country, and how they are treated as minors for all their life. The discrimination she describes, is not only embedded in the country’s legislation, but also in its society; from going to the mall to choosing a major at university, the life of Saudi women like Shoaa are conditioned by their gender.

After having to leave the country, Shoaa, her husband and their two little children moved to Canada, where she became an activist and advocate for human rights in the Arab world.

If you would like to get a better understanding or deepen your knowledge on Saudi Arabia, especially on the topic of women's rights, check out our list of recommended readings here. 

Music credits: Blur And Coalesce by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

Listen to our first series - in Conversation with Saudi Women. We hope that through this series, you will get a better understanding of the women’s rights situation in Saudi Arabia and why our participants left the country. All of them are now very active in the fight for human rights and this might be a great opportunity for you to get inspiration from amazing women. 

The European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR) is the European representation of a coalition of other like-minded NGOs – which includes the Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain – ADHRB (Washington DC, USA), the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights – BCHR (Copenhagen, DK), the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy – BIRD (London, UK) – seeking to promote human rights and democracy in the Gulf region with a particular focus on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Music credits: Blur And Coalesce by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.