Saudi Arabia: Teacher Sentenced To 20 Years For Tweets
On 22 November 2022, security forces raided Asaad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi’s home in Jeddah and forcefully dragged him away after ransacking his home and confiscating some books and computers. Asaad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi is the brother of both Dr Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, an Islamic scholar and government critic living in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom, and Mohammad bin Nasser Al-Ghamdi, a 55-year-old Saudi retired teacher sentenced to death in July 2023 on trumped-up terrorism charges solely due to expressing criticism of the authorities on X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube. On 19 March 2024, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that Mohammad’s detention is arbitrary and in violation of his human rights.
Since 2011, Amnesty International has documented how the Saudi authorities have used the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) as an instrument of repression to silence dissent. The SCC has routinely used vague provisions under the anti-cybercrime and counter-terror laws equating the exercise of the human right to freedom of expression with “terrorism”. Amnesty International has documented how every stage of the SCC judicial process is tainted by human rights violations. The SCC’s judges have presided over grossly unfair trials and handed down prison sentences of up to 45 years and numerous death sentences. Among those the court has punished severely are journalists, human rights defenders, political activists, writers, religious clerics and women’s rights activists.
Nearly all human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, independent journalists, writers and activists in the country have been arbitrarily detained, put through prolonged and unfair trials – most often by the SCC – or released but under conditions that include travel bans and other arbitrary restrictions to their human rights, such as to prevent them to exercise their peaceful activism.
As of July 2024, Amnesty International has documented the cases of 82 individuals who had been prosecuted solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including human rights defenders, political activists, journalists, poets, and clerics. Of those, 32 were prosecuted simply for expressing their opinions on social media. Amnesty International is aware that the real number of such prosecutions is likely much higher.