Saudi Arabia has imprisoned a professor for 30 years for publishing a report about the country.
The report that Inuwar Labarai came across, stated that Saudi Arabia arrested him for publishing information about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its propaganda policies in his Twitter page.
Among the things that caused him to be sent to the prison, the journalist of Saudi Arabia, Turki al-Shalhoub published information that arouses the public's attention regarding Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the holy places of the country.
In his report, Turki exposed the closure of Crown Prince bin Salman on various places, while on the other hand, on their Twitter page on Tuesday, State Security Court Muhammad bin Mohsin al-Basra – a professor at the media faculty of Umm al-Qura University in Mecca posted.
Shalhoub cited a series of connected Tweets from Basra, and wrote that he had blasted the disinformation campaign being exercised by the Saudi-owned and Dubai-based al-Arabiya television news network, Qatar’s three-year-old diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia and three other Arab countries, and the security situation in the country.
“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.