Saudi Arabia's Internet Activist Sentenced To Death For Criticizing His Government On Social Media

Saudi Arabia is punishing a retired teacher, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, for expressing his thoughts in a series of posts on Twitter-turned X.

The 54-old-man is said to have criticized corruption and human rights violations in the country, according to a Saudi Arabian court, and because of that, he faced a slew of charges under Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism law, including:

1. Article 30: "Describing the King or the Crown Prince in a way that undermines religion or justice."
2. Article 34: "Supporting a terrorist ideology."
3. Article 43: "Communication with a terrorist entity."
4. Article 44: "Publishing false news with the intention of executing a terrorist crime."

And this, is punishable by death.

The news was first delivered by his brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, who said that:

Saeed, a well-known Saudi Islamic scholar and government critic, is living in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.

The 62-years-old was forced to seek political asylum after he was targeted by the Saudi Arabian government, especially after the massive arrests campaign launched in early September 2017, which included women and men human rights defenders, journalists, academics and Internet activists, many of whom are still in prison.

Saeed also heads the Sanad Rights Foundation, which documents human rights violations in Saudi Arabia.

And here, he believes that the severity of his brother's sentence is intended as retaliation for his own activism.

"The Saudi authorities asked me several times to return to Saudi Arabia, but I refused to do so. It is very probable that this death sentence against my brother is in retaliation for my activity," he said.

This speculation is based on the fact that the court documents cite two X platform accounts as belonging to Muhammad. According to Human Rights Watch, the first account only had two followers and the second had only eight.

"Both accounts, which have fewer than 1,000 tweets combined, largely contained retweets of well-known critics of the Saudi government."

It's said that Muhammad was arrested in front of his wife and children, outside his home in the al-Nawwariyyah neighborhood of Mecca, people with knowledge of the case.

This has led to widespread condemnation, and has ignited international outrage.

People start raising concerns about freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia.

Sanad Rights Foundation and UK-based human rights organization ALQST revealed that the judgement against Mohammed Al-Ghamdi was rendered in early July, nearly a year after his arrest in June 2022.

According to Human Rights Watch, since Muhammad al-Ghamdi was arrested, he was given very limited access to legal representation before his conviction.

Human Rights Watch's Joey Shea decried the verdict, stating that "repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets."

The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights reported that Saudi Arabia has executed at least 92 people this year alone.

In 2022, ALQST documented 148 executions in Saudi Arabia, more than double the number from the previous year.

The death sentence against Muhammad al-Ghamdi is part of an escalating crackdown on free speech in Saudi Arabia, according to Lina Alhathloul, head of monitoring and advocacy at ALQST.

"They are sending a clear and sinister message – that nobody is safe, and even a tweet can get you killed," she said.

Muhammad al-Ghamdi's case serves as a stark reminder of the challenges facing those who dare to express their opinions in countries with restrictive freedom of speech laws.

"The case of the detainee, Muhammad Al-Ghamdi, must be taken seriously, as the death sentence for a person based solely on five tweets is thought to be the first of its sort in the country. This confirms the Saudi regime’s authoritarian and brutal stance, and the circle of violations has grown horribly, to the point that the Saudi monarchy has condemned someone to death just for tweeting," said Sanad in a website post.

Before this, Musk pledged to cover the legal costs of anyone who gets in trouble with their boss for their activity the social media platform, with "no limit."

But since the news broke, Musk didn't comment or say anything after the Saudi Arabian national was sentenced to death for criticizing his government in a series of posts on his social media platform.

Since Musk declined to comment, this has led people to wonder if his previous statements about supporting free speech were genuine, or if he's more concerned about his financial investments.

Musk's silence is particularly jarring, simply because it's essentially highlighting a potential contradiction or inconsistency in Musk's stance on free speech.

After all, it's quite intriguing how someone so vocal about free speech can suddenly become the enigmatic observer. given his self-professed commitment.

In the past, after acquiring the social media platform, Musk notably allowed several right-leaning journalists unfettered access to company documents and files in an effort to prove the previous regime had worked closely with the U.S. government to restrict the content shared by its users—a series of reports later referred to as "The Twitter Files."

Read: Elon Musk Offers To Pay Legal Fees For 'Unfairly Treated' X Users By Their Employers