Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumDoes anyone know what kind of tweets became a capital offense?
Saudi Crown Prince Confirms Death Sentence for Tweets
[September 22, 2023
(snip)
MBS is right in saying that he is working to change bad laws: under his rule, bad laws have only become worse.
What MBS failed to mention was that the terrible counterterrorism law which led to al Ghamdis death sentence was reissued in 2017, after MBS rose to power. Court documents Human Rights Watch reviewed show that al Ghamdi was sentenced to death on July 10 under a slew of articles from that abusive law, which replaced previously criticized legislation.
Despite MBS claims of reform, Saudi Arabia under his leadership has experienced the worst period for human rights abuses in the countrys modern history. Only under MBS have death sentences and decades long sentences been meted out for social media posts.
The counterterrorism law stripped away extensive powers from the Interior Ministry and transferred them to the Public Prosecution and Presidency of the State Security, established in 2017: both bodies that report directly to the king.
(snip)
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/22/saudi-crown-prince-confirms-death-sentence-tweets
Eugene
(62,630 posts)In Saudi Arabia, rights and freedoms are for MBS to grant as an enlightened despot.
However, initiatives for reform by ordinary people constitute terrorism.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-saeed-ghamdi-brother-scholar-sentenced-death-tweets
Uncle Joe
(60,084 posts)25 August 2023
(snip)
Voices drowned out
Extreme sentencing over social media posts in the kingdom started last August with Shehab's 34-year prison sentence, plus a 34-year travel ban over retweets in support of women's right to drive and for calling for the release of activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul.
(snip)
Hathloul said it was "frustrating, saddening and maddening" that the escalating crackdown over free speech on social media in the kingdom has been so easily drowned out.
"Our voices are less and less heard with everything else that's happening in Saudi Arabia. What the world sees is Neymar and all of these celebrities in Saudi Arabia," she said, referencing the Brazilian footballer who has joined Saudi Pro League al-Hilal.
"But us Saudis, what we are truly going through is we can have our heads cut off because of anonymous accounts."
(snip)
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-saeed-ghamdi-brother-scholar-sentenced-death-tweets
Thanks Eugene
multigraincracker
(34,015 posts)according to you know who.
Uncle Joe
(60,084 posts)what does it take to look strong to a coward?
I believe that would be a person that can make other people feel the same fear as the coward has all their life.
It's not a question of respecting strength so much as a feeling of retribution which *rump openly states as being his platform.
If *rump comes to power, any 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech or anything else for that matter will be seriously at risk on the Internet and anywhere else because he is a coward.
I don't believe it would become so bad as capital punishment offense here in the land of the free, but you never know.