Saudi Arabia: Sudanese journalist jailed for criticizing kingdom
Aerial view of Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia.
AFP - FAISAL AL-NASSER
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Saudi justice has sentenced a Sudanese journalist living in the country to four years in prison.
Ahmad Ali Abdelkader, 31, was arrested last April.
His conviction was handed down on June 8 but only revealed this week by human rights organization Human Rights Watch.
He is accused of a series of tweets and television interviews in which he criticized Saudi Arabia's action in Yemen and Sudan.
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Ahmad Ali Abdelkader was accused of having "
insulted the institutions and symbols of the state
" and of having "
spoken negatively about the kingdom's policies
," HRW said in a statement.
The charges are based on tweets and interviews in which he expressed support for the 2018-2019 Sudanese revolution and criticized Saudi Arabia's actions in his home country as well as in Yemen, the statement said. .
For Hiba Zayadin, researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), the conviction of Ahmad Ali Abdelkader marks the desire to silence any dissenting voice in Saudi Arabia since the appointment of the new crown prince in 2017.
"
As is generally the case when it comes to freedom of expression, the charges were all incredibly vague,
" she explains at the microphone of
Guilhem Delteil
, of the international service of RFI.
He was accused of insulting state institutions and their policies, of speaking negatively about the policies of the kingdom.
In Saudi Arabia, there is no written penal code.
So often judges will create charges that are not recognizable crimes under international law.
"
►
To read also: Saudi Arabia: what hope for the release of Raif Badawi?
"
Story invented by the State
"
Ahmad Ali Abdelkader was arrested at Jeddah airport on April 19 and denied access to a lawyer during the trial, HRW said.
He was detained for twenty days in a police station in Jeddah, then at the Al-Shumaisi detention center, near Mecca, before being brought before a judge, according to the NGO.
Abdelkader worked in Saudi Arabia for five years between 2015 and 2020, then returned to the kingdom in April on a new work visa.
He was arrested on his arrival in the country.
"
What we are seeing now,"
continues the NGO researcher, "
is that for the Saudi authorities, anyone who criticizes Saudi policies, even at the margins, and is within reach in one way or another , they're going to look for him and they're going to try to silence him.
Because they have only one narrative - a narrative invented by the state - that they want to pass on the international scene and anything that does not serve this narrative must be silenced.
This has been the case since Mohamed Ben Salman took power.
"
►
To listen: Saudi feminist activist Loujain al-Hathloul receives the Vaclav-Havel human rights award
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Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Freedom of press
Yemen
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