A Saudi Arabia court has recently sentenced a retired teacher to death over his comments online.
Muhammad al-Ghamdi, (54) retired Saudi teacher, was sentenced “following 5 tweets criticizing corruption and human rights violations,” his brother Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi tweeted last week.
According to Human Rights Watch, Muhammad al-Ghamdi was arrested last year and given little access to a lawyer before his conviction in July, “under Article 30 of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism law for ‘describing the King or the Crown Prince in a way that undermines religion or justice,’ article 34 for ‘supporting a terrorist ideology,’ article 43 for ‘communication with a terrorist entity,’ and article 44 for publishing false news ‘with the intention of executing a terrorist crime.”
Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated in a statement, “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.”
According to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 92 people this year so far. In 2022, UK-based human rights organization ALQST catalogued 148 executions in Saudi Arabia – more than twice the number of executions it recorded in 2021.
Lina Alhathloul stated, the death sentence comes amid an “escalating crackdown” on free speech in the country, ALQST head of monitoring and advocacy and sister of released Saudi political prisoner Loujain al-Hathloul.
She stated, “They are sending a clear and sinister message that nobody is safe, and even a tweet can get you killed.”
Al-Ghamdi’s brother Saeed, a well-known Saudi Islamic scholar and government critic living in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, stated that he believes the severity of the sentence is designed to punish him as well.
He said, “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. Otherwise, his charges wouldn’t have carried such a severe penalty.”
