For using WhatsApp and Twitter, a university professor in Saudi Arabia is sentenced to death. A prominent university professor was given the death penalty by the Saudi regime for using Twitter and WhatsApp to spread information that was said to be “hostile” to the ultraconservative kingdom.
A report that was published on Sunday by the Guardian newspaper made public the decision that was made against Awad al-Qarni, a Saudi Arabian law professor who was in favor of reform.
Nasser, Qarni’s son, who fled the kingdom last year and now lives in the UK, told the British daily the specifics of the charges leveled against his father.
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Saudi-controlled media described Qarni, who was arrested in September 2017, as a “dangerous preacher.” However, dissidents claimed that the 65-year-old was a significant intellectual with a large social media following, including two million followers on Twitter.
The law professor’s “admission” that he used a social media account under his own name (@awadalqarni) and used it “at every opportunity… to express his opinions” was one of the charges against Qarni, for which he is facing the death penalty.
In addition, the court papers claimed that Qarni “admitted” participating in a WhatsApp chat and that he was accused of participating in videos in which he praised the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. The allegations also mentioned Qarni’s use of Telegram and the creation of a Telegram account.
The ruling against the Saudi professor comes as human rights advocates and activists in Saudi Arabia have warned that authorities in Riyadh are engaged in a severe crackdown on individuals who are perceived to be critics of the Saudi regime. Since the beginning of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reign in 2017, the use of social media and other forms of communication has been illegal in the kingdom.
Salma al-Shehab, a Ph.D. student at Leeds and mother of two, was given a sentence of 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and following and retweeting activists and dissidents. Noura al-Qahtani, another woman who used Twitter, received a 45-year prison term.
Additionally, the US-Saudi citizen and dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was a vocal critic of the Saudi royal family, is accused of being brutally murdered in 2018 by the Saudi regime. During a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Khashoggi was dismembered.
This is occurring despite the fact that Saudi Arabia and state-controlled investors have recently increased their financial stakes in US social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This is thought to be Riyadh’s attempt to project an international image of technology, modern infrastructure, sports, and entertainment in order to cover up its long list of rights abuses.
The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has also increased its stake in Facebook and Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp and Facebook.
Even despite international condemnation of the crackdown, Saudi Arabia has arrested hundreds of activists, bloggers, intellectuals, and others for political activism since bin Salman became the kingdom’s de facto leader in 2017.
Riyadh has also rewritten its anti-terrorism laws aimed at activism over the past few years as the kingdom’s authorities continue to restrict freedom of expression, association, and belief, Muslim scholars have been executed, and advocates for women’s rights have been imprisoned and tortured.
source: Tasnim
