The United Nations human rights watchdog on Wednesday criticized the execution of a man in Saudi Arabia based on his activities on Twitter and YouTube, calling it an escalation of the government's crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful political opposition. This human rights organization also added that repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrible level.

Afghan Voice Agency (AVA): Human Rights Watch has reported that the specialized criminal court, which is the judicial body for combating terrorism in Saudi Arabia, on July 10 of this year, Mohammad Al-Ghamdi, a 54-year-old retired teacher from Saudi Arabia, was indicted on various charges. He was found guilty for his peaceful online activity. Based on the tweets, retweets and YouTube activities of Mr. Al-Ghamdi as evidence against him, this court sentenced him to death.
 
"When a court in Saudi Arabia can sentence someone to death based on just a few peaceful tweets, that's a terrible new level of repression in that country," said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates researcher at Human Rights Watch. The authorities of Saudi Arabia have taken their campaign against all opponents to an incredible level, and they must abandon this obvious distortion of the law.
 
According to Euro News, according to informed persons, the security forces of Saudi Arabia arrested Mr. Al-Ghamdi on June 11, 2022, in front of his wife and children, outside his house in Al-Nawariya neighborhood of Makkah.
 
Then he was taken to solitary confinement in Dhahban Central Prison in the north of Jeddah for four months. Mohammad Al-Ghamdi's family was unable to contact him at that time and he also had no access to a lawyer. Saudi Arabian authorities then transferred him to Al Haer Prison in Riyadh.
 
According to Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabian interrogators questioned him about his tweets and political opinions, and asked for his opinions on people who are in prison for trying to find the right to free speech. Mr. Al-Ghamdi had no access to a lawyer for nearly a year and when he finally managed to hire a lawyer, he was only able to speak with him a short time before the court session.
 
Mr. Al-Ghamdi's brother, Saeed bin Nasser Al-Ghamdi, is an Islamic scholar and well-known critic of the Saudi Arabian government, who lives in the UK. In a post on his X social network page (formerly Twitter) on August 24, he wrote about his brother's sentence: "After the unsuccessful efforts of the Public Investigation Department of Saudi Arabia to return me to the country, the purpose of this fake sentence is to put pressure on me.
 
According to the Human Rights Watch, in recent years, the Saudi authorities have increasingly put pressure on the families of critics and opponents in order to return them to the country.
 
According to court documents seen by Human Rights Watch, on July 10, the aforementioned court indicted Mr. Al-Ghamdi based on Article 30 of Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism law on the charge of "describing the king or crown prince in a way that undermines religion or justice", based on Article 34. He was found guilty of the charge of "supporting a terrorist point of view", based on Article 43 of the charge of "establishing contact with a terrorist organization" and based on Article 44 of the charge of "spreading false news with the aim of carrying out terrorist operations".
 
It is said in Mr. Al-Ghamdi's verdict that he used his user accounts on social network X (former Twitter) and YouTube to commit these crimes.
 
According to Human Rights Watch, the public prosecutor of Saudi Arabia has demanded severe punishment for all the charges against Mohammad Al-Ghamdi. According to the court documents, the sentence was issued because the mentioned crimes "targeted the status of the king and the crown prince" and "the scope of his actions, because they were carried out through an international platform, require a severe punishment."
 
One of the two user accounts of Mr. Al-Ghamdi that have been considered by the court has only 2 followers and the other has 8 followers. Both of these accounts contain less than a thousand tweets, most of which are retweets of prominent critics of the Saudi Arabian government.
 
Euronews has reported from informed sources that Mr. Al-Ghamdi suffers from multiple serious mental health problems and that the Saudi Arabian authorities have refused to provide him with prescription drugs that are necessary to treat and manage his condition.
 
According to these sources, the mental and physical health of Mohammad Al-Ghamdi has worsened since his arrest.
 
Ms. Shea said: "Saudi Arabia authorities are now fighting online critics not only with show trials, but also with threats of the death penalty. It is very difficult to understand how the leadership of Saudi Arabia claims to become a more legalistic government with such actions as issuing death sentences just for a few tweets."
 
It should be mentioned that Saudi Arabia is one of the countries where the absolute royal system is ruling and no elections are held there and people do not have the right to express their opinion on political issues.