Saudi footballer imprisoned for a tweet
The Public Prosecution Office of the Saudi regime ordered the arrest a former international player and a former player of Al-Nasr Club, after he posted a tweet and then deleted it.
The security services arrested the footballer Fahd Al-Harifi, after commenting on a tweet from the account of the Saudi Ministry of Interior, talking about the conditions and procedures in place in Jeddah to limit the spread of the new Coronavirus.
Al-Harifi wrote: “With these words and these statements, I do not rule out the return of the league… Al-Hilal is used to us above everything, even if it is life or death.”
The Public Prosecution alleged that it issued the arrest warrant, “based on what was reported by the Parliamentary Monitoring Center, regarding intolerance in sports of a person who violates our society’s long-standing customs, and what he mentioned by dropping the repercussions of the tightening of precautionary health measures to prevent the coronavirus in Jeddah governorate, recently announced, in the interest of a sports club in achieving the league.”
Al-Harifi subsequently deleted his tweet saying that he “meant that all the precautionary measures issued by the Ministry of Interior are the most important.”
He added: “There are those who understood it in another way, so I removed it at the time, and I apologize for not making my point clear in the correct terms.”
A video clip, published by a citizen in the Kingdom, on the bread crisis in a shopping mall, has infuriated the security authorities.
Hours after the release of the video, the security forces arrested him.
Saudi tweeters expressed their solidarity with “Abu Al-Feda”
The Saudi authorities are arresting hundreds of preachers and human rights activists for freedom of opinion and expression, and refuse to release them despite the deterioration of some of theirs health and the death of others.
A Saudi human rights group presented to the United Nations a report reviewing Saudi violations of human rights defenders in the Kingdom, who are cooperating with the United Nations.
(Al-Qast Organization and Mena Human Rights Group) reported that their report contains updated information about seven activists who were subjected to reprisals by the Saudi authorities during 2019.
The human rights report will provide the Secretary-General’s annual report on reprisals against individuals cooperating with the United Nations, which will be submitted to the Human Rights Council in September 2020.
The Kingdom has included more than any other country in the region in the annual report since its issuance in 2010, a reflection of the continuity of the policy of the Saudi authorities aimed at tightening the screws on critical, legal, opposition and silencing voices.
Since Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud assumed power in the Kingdom and his crown prince, his son Muhammad, the security services directly affiliated with the latter’s office, headed by the newly established State Security Service, began arrest campaigns against political, social and human rights activists from various currents.
The report highlights the continuing pattern of intimidation and reprisals by the Al Saudi authorities against human rights defenders cooperating with the UN human rights mechanisms.
The Saudi European Organization for Human Rights has documented the arrest of the Saudi authorities of 87 women, since the rule of Salman and his son.
The American pro-Freedom of Expression group also documented the arrest of 238 intellectuals and writers around the world during 2019, including 38 detainees in the kingdom’s prisons; On charges related to their intellectual and written work.
Earlier, 36 of the 47 members of the Human Rights Council, including the European Union with all its 28 members, condemned the continued arrests in the Kingdom, which were described as “arbitrary” for human rights defenders and using anti-terrorism laws to silence their opponents.
