US woman detained in Saudi Arabia over Twitter post released, family says
An American woman who was detained in Saudi Arabia after posting on Twitter that she and her daughter had been trapped in the kingdom since 2019 has been released and reunited with her daughter, according to her family.
Carly Morris, 34, was released from prison on Wednesday but is still under a travel ban. She was detained on Sunday over allegations that she was “destabilising public order” after posting that she and her daughter, eight, had been held against their will in the country.
US officials had on Tuesday confirmed they were aware of Morris’s detention and that the US embassy in Riyadh was “very engaged” in the case. The ordeal has shed light on Saudi’s guardianship system, which appears to have prevented Morris from being allowed to leave the kingdom.
While it is far from clear whether Morris and her daughter will be allowed to leave the kingdom, her release from prison – for now – suggests that the American could be spared from the slew of harsh and draconian sentences that have been doled out by Saudi authorities in recent months against people who use Twitter or other social media outlets to criticise the Saudi government.
Morris’s case emerged publicly for the first time in August, when human rights defenders began discussing Morris’s plight in Saudi Arabia. Morris had decided to travel to Saudi Arabia for a short period in 2019 so that her daughter could meet her father’s family in Saudi. Morris is divorced from her daughter’s father.
Once she arrived in Saudi, Morris’s family have claimed that her passport and her daughter’s passport were taken from them and that she has been held in a hotel since 2019. Recently, Morris posted a detailed statement about her ordeal on Twitter, in which she warned other women and children against visiting the kingdom.
Morris was detained after being summoned to a public prosecutor’s office on Sunday in connection with an allegation that she was “destabilising public order”, according to an official document seen by the Guardian. The document states that Morris is American and lists her occupation as “housewife”.
The Saudi embassy in Washington and the ministry of foreign affairs did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press seeking comment.
In an interview with the Guardian before Morris’s release, Morris’s mother, Denise White, said Morris had decided to take a short vacation to Saudi Arabia in 2019 so that her daughter could spend time with her father’s family.
White said she had expressed concerns to her daughter at the time about her travel plans. “She kept saying, ‘We’ll be back before you know it,’” White said.
Morris later told her mother that her passport and her daughter’s passport had been taken by her ex-husband after she arrived. More recently, Morris told her mother that she had been banned from traveling and that she was “scared something is going to happen”.
“She did tell me she felt like she was trapped there,” White said. “She met with the US embassy and Saudi officials, there was some kind of meeting, and during that meeting she said she felt there was no solution.”