RIYADH (Middle East Eye) –Saudi Arabia has sentenced a prominent university professor and preacher to death for using the social media platforms of Twitter and WhatsApp to share news claimed to be “hostile” to the ultraconservative kingdom.
Awad al-Qarni, 65, had “admitted” to using a Twitter account under his name “at every opportunity… to express his opinions”, the documents seen by the Guardian revealed on Sunday.
Qarni was arrested in 2017 in a sweeping crackdown on preachers, academics, journalists, businesspeople and others.
The allegations against him also included the creation of a Telegram account and sharing news considered “hostile” to the kingdom in a WhatsApp chat.
Additionally, the law professor was accused of praising the Muslim Brotherhood movement in a video.
Admissions and confessions during interrogations in Saudi prisons are often taken after torture and mistreatment.
A year after his arrest, the public prosecutor called for Qarni to face the death penalty along with Salman Odah and Ali al-Omari.
Qarni, Omari and Odah are independent religious and media figures with a large following among Saudi Arabian and Arab youth.
The Saudi government has been accused by human rights groups of a widespread crackdown on dissent and freedom of expression.
Human rights advocates and Saudi activists have warned that authorities in Riyadh are engaged in a severe crackdown on individuals who are perceived to be critics of the Saudi regime as the use of social media and other communications have been criminalized inside the kingdom since the beginning of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reign in 2017.
Last year, Salma al-Shehab, a Leeds PhD student and mother of two, received a 34-year sentence for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists. Another woman, Noura al-Qahtani, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for using Twitter.
The Saudi regime is also accused of ordering the 2018 brutal murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-Saudi citizen, who used to be a vocal critic of the Saudi royalty. Khashoggi was dismembered during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
This is while the Saudi kingdom and state-controlled investors have recently increased their financial stake in U.S. social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, in what is viewed as Riyadh’s attempts to project an international image of technology, modern infrastructure, sport and entertainment so as to whitewash its long list of rights abuse records.