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Crime The Internet

Saudi Man Receives Death Penalty For Posts Online (apnews.com) 159

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: A Saudi court has sentenced a man to death over his posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, and his activity on YouTube, the latest in a widening crackdown on dissent in the kingdom that has drawn international criticism. The judgement against Mohammed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, seen Wednesday by The Associated Press, comes against the backdrop of doctoral student Salma al-Shehab and others facing decades-long prison sentences over their comments online. The sentences appear part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's wider effort to stamp out any defiance in the kingdom as he pursues massive building projects and other diplomatic deals to raise his profile globally.

According to court documents, the charges levied against al-Ghamdi include "betraying his religion," "disturbing the security of society," "conspiring against the government" and "impugning the kingdom and the crown prince" -- all for his activity online that involved re-sharing critics' posts. Saudi officials offered no reason for why they specifically targeted al-Ghamdi, a retired school teacher living in the city of Mecca. However, his brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, is a well-known critic of the Saudi government living in the United Kingdom. "This false ruling aims to spite me personally after failed attempts by the investigators to have me return to the country," the brother tweeted last Thursday. Saudi Arabia has used arrests of family members in the past as a means to pressure those abroad into returning home, activists and those targeted in the past say. [...]

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top executioners, behind only China and Iran in 2022, according to Amnesty International. The number of people Saudi Arabia executed last year -- 196 inmates -- was the highest recorded by Amnesty in 30 years. In one day alone last March, the kingdom executed 81 people, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history. However, al-Ghamdi's case appears to be the first in the current crackdown to level the death penalty against someone for their online behavior.

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Saudi Man Receives Death Penalty For Posts Online

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  • by javaman235 ( 461502 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @08:41PM (#63810704)

    After the wall came down for the USSR, the people newly exposed to free speech fell for every dumb con ever. The controlled Soviet media had never exposed them to information they were expected to be distrustful or critical of, and they never learned the skill. It seems any strongman is setting up a similar situation, if they never hear criticism of the state, the will believe it the first time they hear it, instead of taking it with a grain of salt like any other information.

    • by BoogieChile ( 517082 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @09:27PM (#63810798)

      Good point, apart from the bit where everyone in the USSR knew that state media was wall-to-wall propaganda and not to be trusted even a little bit.

      • by Bob_Who ( 926234 )
        Kinda like any echo chamber brand chosen to enlist for propagandist information. Autocracies just have less noise to filter out on their officially mandated patriot news "channel" selection of reality. We just ignore other choices and points of view, which for many, amounts to the same skewed effect on understanding the complexity of reality on planet earth.
      • Nope, GP is exactly right. Pyramid schemes and psychic fraudsters have been everywere in the russian prime time TV in the early 1990s. People believed all that because "they wouldn't show it on TV if it was fake".

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • The surest sign of freedom is the loudness of dissent.

    • Putin's regime is even more diabolical than ordinary totalitarianism: They intentionally cultivate cognitive dissonance, spewing conflicting information so that the public's reasoning is short-circuited and people decide the state is un-knowable. Which in practice is the same as making them into believers.

      People who don't recognize the truth when they hear it are the same as people who believe lies.
  • This is horrific. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by johnnys ( 592333 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @08:54PM (#63810738)

    I'm sure the ability to kill your peaceful, honourable, and erudite opponents is a much-desired benefit for tyrants and dictators around the world: Fortunately in Western civilization it tends to be the norm that nations and empires that rule by fear and violence have shorter existences than more civilized ones.

    But this also exposes a true hypocrisy with the West and this murderous regime: Oil is good, golf is good, profits are good, so there are groups who gloss over the horrific viciousness in the name of money.

    One of the groups that does this in a spectacular manner is the province of Quebec in Canada: They happily import oil from Saudi Arabia in large quantities, but at the same time they have introduced laws to reduce the rights of Muslims to wear their traditional clothing and symbols, all in the name of "secularism". What makes the hypocrisy even more egregious is their absolute insistence against any kind of pipeline from Western Canada which has a large supply of natural gas and oil.

    So Quebec blocks petroleum from Canada while fighting against Muslim symbols in public in the name of secularism, while pouring money into a despicable mid-east nation that commits atrocities in the name of religion.

    Please note: I don't mean to divert attention from the horrific nature of the crime committed by the Saudi Arabian dictatorship: I only mean to bring attention to the massive hypocrisy by the West in the name of oil and profits.

    • I don't know anything about Quebec's oil imports, but I do know a little about the French commitment to secularism. And I think it's probably safe to assume that Quebec has carried those over.

      ... I was going to do a whole long-winded thing about the difference between freedom of religion and freedom from religion. But... I don't want too. Let's just say that the French have a history of religious oppression, the Catholic Church owned something like 25% of the land in France before the revolution, and thro
      • a person who immigrates to the United States from county X is always going to be an "X-American." That person can never be an "American."

        A whatever-American is also an American. They are more than American, not less. That doesn't mean that the children of immigrants surrounding them won't treat them badly for being immigrants, of course. They are cowards and hypocrites who want to protect their privilege.

      • Québec culture begin to diverge from French hundreds of years ago, long before "secularism" in its modern sense became a thing, in France or anywhere else I'm aware of.
    • Quebec's oil is now basically all from North America; source on French CBC [radio-canada.ca] and Canada's governmental website [cer-rec.gc.ca]. Quebec is also the province that generates most hydro electricity, due to their geography, so they don't need petrol for that either.

      As for their reducing the rights of Muslims to wear religious symbols, it applies to all religions, not just Muslims, and as far as I understand it's only for public servants (incl. teachers, police, etc.), while at work. If you represent the state, you should not re
  • by turp182 ( 1020263 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @10:56PM (#63810980) Journal

    I'm not trying to be snide. The Saudi's effectively bought pro-golf by manhandling the PGA into capitulation.

    And this death (murder) sentence is obviously a care of state sponsored terrorism, that's exactly what it is word-for-word (regardless of "legal", does that have meaning?).

    How does the PGA's association with the country tarnish it's reputation? Does it?

    And yes, everyone invests there, they have fuckall money and realize their oil is finite.

    Money always wins it seems.

    • On a side note, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is scheduling Saudi Prince Mohammad Bone Saw (also known as MBS) to formally visit Britain on the fifth anniversary of MBS having ordered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. After sports-washing comes UK-washing.

      https://apnews.com/article/sau... [apnews.com]

  • by rally2xs ( 1093023 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @12:29AM (#63811104)

    Wow, its a good thing tha we here in the USA have the 1st Amendment, and all parties fully support freedom of speech in all things.

    We're so lucky....

    • by jd ( 1658 )

      I hope that the sarcasm tags were intended, my internal browser has difficulty picking up implied tags. (Trump and the other Republican establishment are absolutely against 1A and seek to weaken it, bypass it, or otherwise negate it. They'd eliminate it if they could.)

      • Yeah, that was sarcasm alrighty.

        But it's funny, after FBI suppression of Hunter Biden';s laptop's incriminating evidence against both Hunter and Joe, both before and after the election, Democrat's suppression of information wouldn't attract your attention. Or, the FBI, under JB, targets parents as terrorists for simply vocalizing their displeasure at local school board meetings. Then of course there's the FBI-directed social media silencing accounts of those that criticize the President or some other De

      • Trump and the other Republican establishment are absolutely against 1A and seek to weaken it, bypass it, or otherwise negate it. They'd eliminate it if they could.

        Both parties have a narrative, and seek to eliminate the freedom to speak against it. Don't blindly adhere to party politics, as neither major party has your best interest at heart when it conflicts with their own. They both want to enslave us all, but just for different reasons.

    • Anyone got killed for calling Trump, Biden or whoever else you think is the new messiah a dipshit?

      I mean, by the state, not his devotees.

      • Anyone got killed for calling Trump, Biden or whoever else you think is the new messiah a dipshit?

        No... Not yet.

    • This is a very old human tradition: Monarchies. Its not even related to Islam. You just can't say anything against royalty, period. You are inferior to royalty, you are a subject. You don't talk back to royalty, they are the sovereign ruler and you are their possession to do with you whatever they see fit. Be thankful if you can have some life. It is even worse in some countries that proclaim to not be a monarchy but are like one in reality. At least there you knew in advance that whatever freedoms you may

  • will be quite satisfying. There are fewer more putrid wounds on the face of humanity than that degenerate, blood-soaked medieval theme park.

    Everywhere it ever intersected with us (Americans) has made our history uglier and more poisonous. I can't wait for oil to finally die a deserved death, and for those who built kingdoms of horror on control of it to flee in fear from their subjects.

    Of course what follows would probably be worse, but at least we won't be an ingredient in the witch's brew.
  • Britain (when the death penalty existed) and America have both had celebrity death penalty cases where it was being used to try and exert pressure on those they suspected of crimes via those they knew to be innocent of the death penalty charges they stood accused of. So this would seem to be a characteristic of death penalty countries, not just specific tyrannical regimes.

  • The UN is great, giving all countries a forum to communicate with each other. But there it should stop.

    Trade? Business? Treaties? What would happen if civilized countries simply refused any and all interaction with barbarians? Want to join civilization? First, be civilized. Which Saudia Arabia is not.

    • Want to join civilization? First, be civilized. Which Saudia Arabia is not.

      Name the permanent member of the UNSC which isn't responsible for gross atrocities.

  • Criminalizing the political opposition saying stuff??? Appalling!
  • So these barbaric primitives are valued trading partners, while China gets vilified. Notice something badly off here?

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @08:34AM (#63811718)

    In countries that have so called sharia law, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia if you pay off family members of murder victims you can get off. For example, —and you can look this up .. some sicko in Iran beheaded his wife and walked around on the street with her head. They only gave the guy who killed his wife only 8 years in prison. And btw this happened the same time they put a woman who didn’t wear a headscarf properly in jail for 10 years. And btw the murderer would have got off fully scot free if he wasn’t charged with being a nuisance for walking around with her head. That was because Iran, being a “sharia” country, if you pay the immediate “family” of the victim compensation, and they accept it, you can get off. This basically allows many wealthy families to get off on murder charges, sometimes for as little as $1000, especially when their victims are from a poor family. Sometimes they exert various threats to make the family accept the payment. This also allows family to conspire against their own family.

  • Looks like their image is going to need a few more rounds of 'rehabilitation' after this. Maybe they can buy and ruin the NFL next? Or maybe people can stop pretending this is an actual country, and not a criminal organization.
  • It's still ridiculous that western countries are still doing business with the Saudi's, even though they are worse as Russia, North Korea or China, but heeee, they got oil, so we just accept all the bad things that happen over there, but other countries get sanctions for less.. Western countries are just a bunch of f-ing hypocrites, with the US being the biggest.

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