For the second time in a month, Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to decades in prison over her tweets: rights group

• Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani was sentenced to 45 years in prison by the Saudi government for posts on social media. 
• She is the second Saudi woman this month to receive a decades-long sentence for online posts. 
• A rights group said the concerning pattern "shows how emboldened Saudi authorities feel to punish even the mildest criticism from its citizens."

For the second time this month, a Saudi woman has been sentenced to decades in prison for her tweets, a human rights group said. 

Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani was sentenced to 45 years in prison "apparently for simply tweeting her opinions," Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) announced on Tuesday. 

The Saudi Specialized Criminal Court convicted al-Qahtani of "using the Internet to tear the [country's] social fabric" and "violating the public order by using social media" under the country's Counter-Terrorism Law and Anti-Cyber Crime Law, according to DAWN. 

The group said it's investigating al-Qahtani's case but not much is known about what her posts said, other than that she criticized Saudi leaders.

al-Qahtani's sentence comes weeks after the Saudi government sentenced Salma al-Shehab, a 34-year-old mother and women's rights activist, to 34 years in prison for her tweets.

"In both the al-Shebab and al-Qahtani cases, Saudi authorities have used abusive laws to target and punish Saudi citizens for criticizing the government on Twitter," Abdullah Alaoudh, Director of Research for the Gulf Region at DAWN, said. 

The group said the back-to-back sentences "shows how emboldened Saudi authorities feel to punish even the mildest criticism from its citizens."

The Saudi Specialized Criminal Court was originally made in 2008 to oversee terrorism and security issues in the country but, since then, "routinely targets minorities and dissenters," according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.