Saudi Man Gets 30-Year Jail Term For Social Media Post Criticising Government (Photo @Pixabay)

Drawing the public attention to the suppression of voice in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a Saudi court recently sentenced, Mohammed al-Ghamdi, a retired teacher to a 30-year jail term for criticising the government on social media. According to the accused’s brother, Saeed al-Ghamdi, his sibling’s punishment comes two months after a court overturned his death sentence for the same charge.

The accused’s death sentence under the de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had raised concerns regarding increased scrutiny on the freedom of speech. Though the court set aside Ghamdi’s death sentence in August on an appeal by the accused, the appeal court has sentenced the accused to 30 years of imprisonment in the same case. 

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A specialised criminal court, set up in 2008 to deal with anti-national and terrorism-related cases, sentenced Mohammed al-Ghamdi to death in 2023 after the cop arrested the former teacher in 2022, charging sections including conspiracy against the Saudi leadership, undermining state institutions, and supporting terrorist ideology, according to a media brief.

Mohammed al-Ghamdi had been sentenced to death in July 2023 by the Specialised Criminal Court, which was set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases. The accused, who is in his 50s, had slammed the Saudi government on social media, expressing his support for “prisoners of conscience,” including the jailed religious clerics Salman al-Awda and Awad al-Qarni. Prisoners of conscience are those detained by the authorities for exercising their fundamental rights, according to critics.

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Notably, the accused has only nine followers on the X platform, which he used to criticise the authority. Commenting on the punishment his brother was sentenced to, Saeed al-Ghamdi said that this “about-face in judgments testifies to the dramatic state of the kingdom’s politicized judicial system,” adding that his sibling is not guilty of being arrested and tried in this way.

The kingdom, though ambitiously pursuing reforms to make the country a global business destination, draws flak for continuing to restrict free speech. In November last year, Saudi Arabia detained individuals for protesting against the ongoing Gaza genocide.