Carly Morris told relatives three years ago that she planned to travel to Saudi Arabia for a short time so her eight-year-old daughter could meet her paternal grandfather. However, Morris was then locked in a years-long battle to get her young daughter back from the kingdom over the objections of her Saudi ex-husband. Morris’s attempts to leave have been made more difficult by Saudi Arabia’s strict male guardianship laws. US officials confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday the detention of Morris, a native of California. Spokesman Ned Price said: “Our embassy in Riyadh is very involved in this case and is monitoring the situation very closely.” Morris was arrested after being summoned to a prosecutor on Sunday in connection with an allegation that she was “destabilizing public order”, according to an official document seen by the Guardian. The document says Morris is American and lists her occupation as “homemaker.” The call followed Morris posting a lengthy statement on Twitter, in which she warned other women and children not to visit the kingdom. In the statement, she said she and her daughter had been held “against our will” in a hotel under “extreme and terrible conditions” where they had faced “extensive social isolation” since 2019. The whereabouts of Morris’ daughter, who is also a US citizen, is unknown. The Saudi embassy in Washington and the State Department did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment. The case marks the latest instance of a dissident or critic of the Saudi government being detained or convicted for using social media. Human rights activists at the Freedom Initiative, which followed Morris’ story, said she was the third American woman to be detained in Saudi Arabia. “Morris’ detention means we now know there are three Americans behind bars in Saudi Arabia, yet another sign that Saudi Arabia simply does not value the US as an ally,” said Alison McManus, the Freedom Initiative’s director of research. “Before we hear another mention of Saudi Arabia’s strategic partnership, we must see an end to the abuse of American citizens. We must see an end to the abuse of women and children whose only crime is their gender.” In another case, a 34-year-old mother named Salma al-Shehab, who was completing her PhD at the University of Leeds but returned to her native Saudi Arabia for a short holiday, was convicted and sentenced to decades in prison for following and liking tweets . by some Saudi dissidents while living in the UK. In her statement on Twitter, Morris said: “We have spent the last three years under these conditions and had our basic human rights denied and our lives stolen from us. For more than three years I tried to get help from every government office and authority. My condition has been downplayed, neglected and mishandled.” In her warning to others, she said: “You will be deprived of your dignity, honor and rights. You will be put under inhumane conditions. And anyone, at any point, can do anything to you, and you won’t get the desperate help you need, and there will be no justice. In fact, you will be charged and criminalized in return.” Morris’ case began to receive attention in August, when her condition became known to some human rights defenders who spoke to the media. In an interview with the Guardian, Morris’ mother, Denise White, said that Morris decided to take a short holiday in Saudi Arabia so that her daughter could spend time with her father’s family. Morris is divorced from her daughter’s father, who is Saudi. The former couple met while living in the US, White said. White said she had expressed concerns to her daughter at the time about her travel plans. “He 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 “afraid something was going to happen”. “She told me she felt like she was trapped there,” White said. “He met with the American embassy and Saudi officials, there was some kind of meeting, and during that meeting he said he felt there was no solution.” White said she last spoke to her daughter a few days ago, but then received a notice from a human rights defender that Morris was being held. White said Morris recently called Morris’ husband on his cell phone to tell him he had been arrested but did not know what the charges were. He was calling from prison, he said. Another American, Saad Ibrahim Almadi, 72, who was returning home to Saudi Arabia for a vacation, was arrested in November 2021 and recently sentenced to 16 years in prison for a tweet critical of the regime.
