The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Court of Appeal has overturned the death sentence issued against a retired teacher, Mohammed bin Nasser Al-Ghamdi, for tweeting about human rights.
On July 9, 2023, 55-year-old Mohammed Al-Ghamdi was sentenced to death by the Specialised Criminal Court in Riyadh for his tweets criticising corruption and human rights violations.
In July 2022, he was apprehended by Saudi authorities, who subjected him to mistreatment and deliberate medical neglect during his detention.
In a statement, Sanad, a UK-based human rights group, recently said it had learned that the Kingdom’s Court of Appeal had cancelled the sentence issued against Mohammed Al-Ghamdi.
“No new sentence has been issued against him yet,” the organisation said.
In this regard, Dana Ahmed, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Researcher, said, “Mohammed bin Nasser Al-Ghamdi’s so-called ‘crime’ was expressing his opinions on social media. He should have never been prosecuted let alone sentenced to death in the first place.”
“He should have never been prosecuted let alone sentenced to death in the first place,” Ahmed said, adding, “While quashing his death sentence is a great relief for him and his family, the court must now end his long and painful ordeal by quashing his conviction and ordering his immediate and unconditional release.”
Ahmed urged Saudi authorities to demonstrate their commitment to human rights reforms and end the widespread use of the death penalty to suppress freedom of expression.
“If the Saudi authorities are serious about their stated commitment to human rights reform, they must also immediately and unconditionally release all those detained for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression and take effective steps to end the crackdown on dissent and the widespread use of the death penalty,” he said.
In May, the Kingdom’s specialised criminal court sentenced Al-Ghamdi’s brother, Assad bin Nasser Al-Ghamdi, to 20 years in prison over social media posts deemed critical of the government.
Their other brother, Saeed bin Nasser Al-Ghamdi, an Islamic scholar and government critic, is currently living in self-imposed exile in the UK.
Amnesty has reported retaliation against exiled dissidents, activists, and human rights defenders’ families, including 40 cases where relatives were subjected to travel bans without official notification.
The rights group also documented an escalating crackdown in Saudi Arabia against people voicing their opinions on social media.
It said that the specialised criminal court, Kingdom’s notorious counter-terror court, had imposed punishments of up to 45 years in jail using “vague provisions” under the anti-cybercrime and counter-terrorism laws.
