Trolls attack Saudi scholar for calling to free prisoners of conscience

The Saudi Royal Court’s trolls attacked the preacher Ahmed Al-Zaraa after he requested the release of prisoners of conscience against the Gulf crisis background.

The Prisoners of Conscience account said on Twitter that “the electronic flies (trolls) are waging a fierce campaign against Sheikh Ahmed Al-Zaraa, and he is asking the authorities to arrest him.”

The human rights account stated that this campaign came “because of the video published by the farmers, on Wednesday, calling on the Crown Prince to release prisoners of conscience after the Gulf reconciliation.”

The Prisoners of Conscience held the Saudi authorities fully responsible for Al-Zaraa’s life, stressing that freedom of opinion is a right for everyone.

Al-Zaraa sent a message to Bin Salman, in a video clip published on Saudi communication sites.

In the video clip, he called on the Crown Prince to release the prisoners of conscience.

He said: “Blessed be the reconciliation with Qatar, and Your Highness, you have been generous and very tolerant when you received Sheikh Tamim on the plane’s steps.

And Sheikh Al-Zaraa added, “But this crisis has passed for three years, and it is the same period in which some sheikhs, scholars and thinkers were arrested among the best of the people.”

He asked, “Don’t you think, Your Highness, that it is time to reconcile with these people and pardon them?”

Huge demands

After the Al-Ula summit was held, last week, to complete the Gulf reconciliation, activists and human rights activists launched an online campaign.

The campaign calls on the Saud family to release all detainees in the kingdom’s prisons, following the Gulf reconciliation announcement.

Tweeters questioned about the fate of the prisoners of conscience, while others demanded within the hashtag #GulfReconciliation, the release of all detainees.

They pointed out that all the detainees were arrested after the blockade on Qatar 2017 and they must be released after the completion of the reconciliation.

Arrests

The violent arrests campaign against the Sahwa Movement began in early September 2017.

When international news agencies reported that the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, had a telephone conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, under American auspices, to meet, the Al Saud authorities began arresting the scholars Dr Salman Al-Awda and Dr Awad Al-Qarni, before expanding to reach sheikhs, writers and journalists.

Al-Odah wrote on social media, congratulating the move and calling for unity among the Gulf, prompting the authorities to arrest him, along with another Islamic preacher, Awad Al-Qarni.

Observers in Saudi Arabia had expected that the arrest of Al-Awda and Al-Qarni would be just regular detentions by the Saudi regime every time.

Everyone was surprised by a large campaign targeting the entire Sahwa affiliates.

The arrests included the Sahwa sheikhs, such as Nasser al-Omar, Saeed bin Musfer, Muhammad Musa al-Sharif, Yusef al-Ahmad and Abdul-Mohsen al-Ahmad.

Al-Bishi and Khaled Al-Awda, brother of Salman Al-Awda, were fined. The list did not stop at the Islamic preachers only.

Instead, it included scholars and economists sympathetic to the Sahwa Movement, such as Essam Al-Zamil and Abdullah Al-Maliki, and Mustafa Al-Hassan, who was later released following his health deteriorating and cancer.

Ali Abu Al-Hassan, the Islamic chanter Rabie Hafez, the novelist Fawaz Al-Ghuslan, and the journalists Khaled Al-Alkami and Fahd Al-Sunaidi were also arrested.

And the head of the Islamic Press Association, Ahmed Al-Soyyan, and Dr. Youssef Al-Mahous, Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Hawtat Sudair were detained later.

The campaign, which Saudi organizations called the “September campaign” continued even after three years.

The Saudi authorities arrested Sheikh Abdullah Basfar and academic Saud Al-Fannisan, formerly Dean of Sharia at Al-Imam University in Riyadh.