A Saudi Arabian humanitarian aid worker has filed a lawsuit in the United States (US) against Twitter, senior Saudi Arabia officals including crown prince Mohammed bin Salman alleging attempts to silence critics overseas, local media reported.
Dual US-Saudi citizen Areej Al-Sadhan, sister of the aid worker Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan filed the lawsuit in a US federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday.
According to an Associated Press report, Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan, a Red Crescent worker in Riyadh, was arrested without a warrant or charge in the kingdom in 2018.
An anti-terrorism court sentenced him to 20 years in prison in 2021 and handed him a 20-year travel ban.
It is believed that his arrest is linked to an anonymous Twitter account he runs, through which he commented on human rights and social justice issues in Saudi Arabia.
The case has raised questions about how Saudi Arabia obtained information about the person behind the social media account.
The lawsuit against Twitter and Saudi Arabia alleges that they run a racketeering company that seeks to extend authoritarian control over Saudi Arabia beyond its borders.
The lawsuit alleges that the Saudis have targeted numerous dissidents since the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by accessing confidential Twitter data with the help of its employees and providing Saudi Arabia with that data “to exact revenge on its critics, through the kidnapping, torture, imprisonment and killing of perceived opponents.”
“Twitter — which was once the chosen platform for Arab youth revolutionizing to liberate their countries from despotic leadership during the Arab Spring — enabled its co-conspirators in the Saudi Criminal Enterprise to crush that very dissent, and then even permitted Defendant KSA to enjoy an equity stake in Defendant Twitter through its private investment funds,” Al-Sadhan’s sister added in the lawsuit.
In 2022, a former Twitter employee, Ahmad Abouammo was sentenced to more than three years in prison after being found guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia.
