A teacher in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for making critical posts on social media.
According to HRW, Asad al-Ghamdi (47) was arrested in November 2022 during a house raid in the Saudi city of Jeddah. He was convicted on May 29 by Saudi Arabia’s Special Criminal Court, established in 2008 to try terrorism suspects.
The New York-based rights group said Assad was “sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges related to peaceful social media activity”.
According to HRW’s review of court documents, Assad was accused of “challenging the religion and justice of the King and Crown Prince” and “publishing false and malicious news and rumours”. But according to the group, the posts used as evidence for these allegations criticized projects related to the country’s Vision 2030 reform agenda.
Earlier, Assad’s brother Mohammad also faced similar charges. He was a critic of the government. He condemned the alleged corruption and violation of human rights through social media. He was sentenced to death last year based on these activities. Another brother of Assad and Mohammed, Saeed, condemned the latest move by Saudi authorities.
He is an Islamic scholar and critic of the Saudi government. He is currently in exile in the UK. Commenting on the verdict against Assad, he told AFP, “The charges are arbitrary and unjust.” Because they are all based on tweets. Maybe I’m a target too. ‘
In the past two years, the Saudi judiciary has convicted and given long prison terms to several individuals for their posts on social media, according to rights groups. Among them is Nourah al-Qahtani, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2022. He was given this sentence mainly because of posting criticizing the government. In addition, Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison in 2022 for aiding dissidents to “disrupt public order” on Twitter.
