Turki al-Shalhoub, a Saudi journalist who earlier stirred controversy by outing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's divisive plans against revered sites in the nation, tweeted on Tuesday that the State Security Court had ruled against Muhammad bin Mohsin al-Basra, a professor at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca.
Shalhoub wrote that he had denounced the Saudi-owned and Dubai-based al-Arabiya television news network's disinformation campaign, Qatar's three-year-old diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia and three other Arab countries, and the security situation in the nation. He cited a string of related tweets from Basra.
“Saudi security forces only intervene when the sovereignty of the House of Saud is threatened; otherwise they would not take any serious actions,” the journalist commented.
Last month, the Prisoners of Conscience, an independent non-governmental organization advocating human rights in Saudi Arabia, reported that state officials had detained pro-democracy campaigner Fadi Ibrahim Nasser over tweets that criticized the Saudi government, and the policies of the Al Saud regime vis-à-vis joblessness among Saudi citizens.
Earlier that month, human rights organizations said a Saudi activist had received a 10-year jail sentence for writing tweets critical of the government.
The Prisoners of Conscience said at the time that the so-called Specialized Criminal Court in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh issued the verdict against Abdullah Gailan on November 15, and slapped a 10-year travel ban on him as well.
Hundreds of Saudi activists, bloggers, intellectuals and others have been arrested ever since bin Salman took helm of state affairs in 2017 as de facto leader.
The aggressive crackdown is an obvious sign of almost zero tolerance for dissent even in the face of international condemnation of the repressive measures.
Riyadh has also redefined its anti-terrorism laws over the past years to target activism.