Saudi Arabia: Cleric will get dying sentence for utilizing social media

A 65-year-old Professor named Awad Al-Qarni has been handed a dying sentence for the crime of utilizing social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram. He is accused of allegedly disseminating anti-government information on social media, reported The Guardian.

The pro-reform legislation cleric was arrested on September 9, 2017, after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took the reigns into his palms. According to the report, Awad Al-Qarni has been falsely portrayed as a ‘dangerous preacher’ by State-controlled media.

Prior to his arrest, the cleric boasted of a whopping 2 million followers on Twitter. His arrest is taken into account as a crackdown on dissidents by the authoritative Saudi Arabian authorities.

Screengrab of the Twitter account of Awad Al-Qarni

As per The Guardian report, using social media in Saudi Arabia has been criminalised by the regime of Mohammed bin Salman. This is even if the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom, has huge investments in Facebook and Whatsapp.

The British newspaper reported that Awad Al-Qarni has been given a dying sentence for admitting that he used his Twitter account (@awadalqarni) to specific his opinions at each alternative. His son Nasser gave the small print of the costs slapped towards him to the newspaper. Nasser fled the dominion final 12 months and resides within the UK, the place he’s searching for asylum safety.

Awad Al-Qarni has been charged for allegedly praising the novel Islamist outfit, Muslim Brotherhood, in movies and Whatsapp chats. “Al-Qarni’s apparent use of Telegram and creation of a Telegram account were also included in the allegations,” the report said.

من هم الذين داهموا منزلنا يوم الاعتقال؟
و كيف اقتحموا البيت على والدي وأهلي؟
عن ماذا كان يبحثون في داخل المنزل؟
أنا وأخي .. أين كنا؟!
هنا أروي لكم القصة كاملة لما حدث لوالدي الدكتور عوض القرني في تلك الليلة pic.twitter.com/FInKPzZa7P

— ناصر بن عوض القرني (@NasserAwadQ) October 5, 2022

This just isn’t the primary time that the Kingdom has penalised somebody for utilizing social media. In August final 12 months, a lady named Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in jail for having a Twitter account and sharing tweets of activists and critics of the MBS regime.

Around the identical time, one other lady Nourah bint Saeed al-Qaht was sentenced to 45 years imprisonment over her social media exercise. Jeed Basyouni, who works for human rights group Reprieve, stated that the dying sentence handed out to Awad Al-Qarni fitted a sample of silencing critics.

She stated,”…The public prosecutor – underneath the steering of Mohammed bin Salman – known as for individuals to be killed for his or her opinions, for tweets, and for conversations. They (the activists) aren’t harmful, they’re not calling for an overthrow of the regime.”

The improvement comes at a time when Saudi Arabia is making an attempt to rebrand itself as a tolerant, pluralist society.