#Saudi Arabia twitter

[odinsblog]

On July 10, 2023, the Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism tribunal, convicted Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, a retired Saudi teacher, of several criminal offenses related solely to his peaceful expression online. The court sentenced him to death, using his tweets, retweets, and YouTube activity as the evidence against him.

Repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage when a court can hand down the death penalty for nothing more than peaceful tweets,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi authorities have escalated their campaign against all dissent to mind-boggling levels and should reject this travesty of justice.”

👉🏿 https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/29/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-tweets

#politics #muhammad al-ghamdi #elon musk #twitter #saudi arabia #libertarians #uae #alwaleed bin talal bin abdulaziz #free speech absolutist my blaque ass

[liam-93-productions]

paulyhiggins: Hanging out with the Boss ⁦⁦@LiamPayne⁩ in Riyadh !! What an experience we’ve just had!! ❤️

#liam payne #paul higgins #twitter mention #liam in saudi arabia #29.10.2023

[umlewis]

📷 @.fazreenidham / twitter

#lewis hamilton #f1 #formula 1 #fic ref #fic ref 2024 #not a race #2024 not a race #between saudi arabia and australia 2024 #(note to self: in malaysia. uploaded to twitter march 14 2024.)

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The social media company formerly known as Twitter has been accused in a revised civil US lawsuit of helping Saudi Arabia commit grave human rights abuses against its users, including by disclosing confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities at a much higher rate than it has for the US, UK or Canada.

The lawsuit was brought last May against X, as Twitter is now known, by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail.

It centers on the events surrounding the infiltration of the California company by three Saudi agents, two of whom were posing as Twitter employees in 2014 and 2015, which ultimately led to the arrest of al-Sadhan’s brother, Abdulrahman, and the exposure of the identity of thousands of anonymous Twitter users, some of whom were later reportedly detained and tortured as part of the government’s crackdown on dissent.

Lawyers for Al-Sadhan updated their claim last week to include new allegations about how Twitter, under the leadership of then chief executive Jack Dorsey, willfully ignored or had knowledge of the Saudi government’s campaign to ferret out critics but – because of financial considerations and efforts to keep close ties to the Saudi government, a top investor in the company – provided assistance to the kingdom.

The new lawsuit details how X had originally been seen seen as a critical vehicle for democratic movements during the Arab spring, and therefore became a source of concern for the Saudi government as early as 2013.

The new legal filing comes days after Human Rights Watch condemned a Saudi court for sentencing a man to death based solely on his Twitter and YouTube activity, which it called an “escalation” of the government’s crackdown on freedom of expression.

The convicted man, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, is the brother of a Saudi scholar and government critic living in exile in the UK. Saudi court records examined by HRW showed that al-Ghamdi was accused of having two accounts, which had a total of 10 followers combined. Both accounts had fewer than 1,000 tweets combined, and contained retweets of well-known critics of the government.

The Saudi crackdown can be traced back to December 2014, as Ahmad Abouammo – who was later convicted in the US for secretly acting as a Saudi agent and lying to the FBI – began accessing and sending confidential user data to Saudi Arabian officials. In the new lawsuit, it is claimed that he sent a message to Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to Mohammed bin Salman, via the social media company’s messaging system, saying “proactively and reactively we will delete evil, my brother”. It was a reference, the lawsuit claims, to the identification and harming of perceived Saudi dissidents who were using the platform. Al-Qahtani was later accused by the US of being a mastermind behind the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

“Twitter was either aware of this message – brazenly sent on its own platform – or was deliberately ignorant to it,” the revised lawsuit states.

Twitter, now X, does not respond to questions from the press.

The Guardian contacted the company lawyer in the case, Ben Berkowitz of Keker, Van Nest & Peters, but did not receive a response. The Guardian also contacted Dorsey’s new company, Block, Inc, to request a comment from the former Twitter chief executive, but did not receive a response.

After Abouammo resigned in May 2015, he continued to contact Twitter to field requests he was receiving from Bader al-Asaker, a senior aide of Mohammed bin Salman, for the identity of confidential users. He made clear to the company, the lawsuit alleges, that the requests were on behalf of his “old partners in the Saudi government”.

The lawsuit also alleges that Twitter had “ample notice” of security risks to internal personal data, and that there was a threat of insiders illegally accessing it, based on public reporting at the time.

Twitter “did not simply ignore all these red flags … it was aware of the malign campaign”, the lawsuit claims.

On 28 September 2015, Twitter received a complaint from a Saudi user that their accounts had been compromised. But, the lawsuit alleges, the company did not act to bar one of the Saudis who was later accused – Ali Hamad Alzabarah – from having access to confidential user data, even though he had accessed the user’s account previously.

Saudi Arabian authorities, the lawsuit alleges, would formally follow up with Twitter once it received confidential user data from its agents working inside the company, by filing so-called EDRs – or emergency disclosure requests – in order to obtain documentation that confirmed a user’s identity, which it would then use in court. Often those EDRs were approved on the same day.

In May 2015, when two Twitter users tweeted about the kingdom in a way that al-Asaker found objectionable, Albabarah accessed the users’ data within hours. EDRs about the users were then sent, and automatically approved by Twitter, the lawsuit alleges.

Between July and December 2015, Twitter granted the kingdom information requests “significantly more often” than most other countries at that time, including Canada, the UK, Australia and Spain, the lawsuit alleges.

On 5 November 2015, just days before Twitter was confronted by the FBI about its concerns about a Saudi infiltration of the company, it promoted Alzabarah – now a fugitive living in Saudi. In response, Alzabarah sent his Saudi government contact, al-Asaker, a note, conveying his “unimaginable happiness” for the promotion. The note, the lawsuit claims, is evidence that Alzabarah believed al-Asaker had “arranged” or “been influential” in connection to the promotion.

Once Twitter was made aware of the FBI’s concerns, it put Alzabarah on leave and confiscated his laptop, but not his phone, which he has used extensively to contact his Saudi state contacts. Twitter, the lawsuit alleges, “had every reason to expect that Alzabarah would immediately flee to Saudi Arabia, which is exactly what he did.”

The US attorney’s office in San Francisco, which handled the case, did not respond to The Guardian’s request for comment on the company’s handling of the matter.

Twitter would later notify users who had been exposed, telling them their data “may” have been targeted, but did not provide more specific information about the scale or certainty that the breach had, in fact, occurred.

By “failing to give this crucial information, Twitter put thousands of Twitter users at risk,” the lawsuit alleges, claiming that some may have had time to escape the kingdom had they understood the risk. Even once Twitter was aware of the breach, it continued to meet and strategize with Saudi Arabia as one of its vital partners in the region. Dorsey met with bin Salman about six months after the company was made aware of the issue by the FBI, and the two discussed how to “train and qualify Saudi cadres.”

“We believe in Areej’s case and we will zealously prosecute it – but what she wants most is for Saudi Arabia to simply release her brother and let him re-join his family in the United States,” said Jim Walden, a lawyer representing Al-Sadhan from Walden Macht & Haran. “Were that to happen, she and Abdulrahman would gratefully resume their lives and leave justice in God’s hand.”

#us politics #news #Twitter #x #jack dorsey #saudi arabia #human rights abuses #united states #united kingdom #canada #Areej al-Sadhan #Human Rights Watch #freedom of expression #Muhammad al-Ghamdi #prince Mohammed bin Salman #Saud al-Qahtani #Ahmad Abouammo #fbi #Jamal Khashoggi #the guardian #world politics

[russellius]

2021 SAUDI ARABIAN GP : DNF

GEORGE: Pros and cons, to a track like this...

#george russell #f1 #*m #21 #saudi arabia #sau21 #(i fucking hated that race weekend but this interview has been living rent-free in my mind ever since then) #(..........................................him.) #(the biggest thanks to @mop__mo on twitter for this!)

[hey-kae]

Can people see that the pitstop wasn’t slow, they just couldn’t release him because of traffic?😃😭

#I’m starting to wonder if some people actually watch the races #or they just read what’s happening on twitter #charles leclerc #saudi arabia gp 2024

[lilithism1848]

#communism #socialism #anti capitalism #anarchy #leftism #west bank #tweet #israel is terrorist #genocide #israel #israeli occupation #i stand with palestine #arabic #rip twitter #united arab emirates #saudi arabia #egypt #makkah #turban #masjid #arabian #hebrew #english #spanish #latin

[lewishamiltonstuff]

We are gonna have Lewis vs Max at some point tomorrow

#😵‍💫 #Has anyone realized this???? #We are gonna witness war crimes tomorrow from p15 to wherever he finishes (i am not gonna say it) #formula 1 #f1 #lewis hamilton #lewis #f1blr #formula one #fic ref #mercedes amg f1 #fic ref 2023 #saudi arabia gp 2023 #2023 saudi arabia #jeddah 2023 #jeddah gp 2023 #anti max verstappen #anti red bull #f1 2023 #source: twitter

[monegazque]

Charles Leclerc: "The first lap will be crucial. I'll need to stay out of trouble, but then I'll push to get to the front. Our race pace is better than our flying lap. I was disappointed in my qualifying because I wanted to take pole, not P2. Our main goal? At least the podium."

i don't know you but i'm all for charles villain era

#i got this from twitter i'm not sure if its a interview or not #but i had to post it #i hope it wont be a problem #charles leclerc #formula 1 #f1 #scuderia ferrari #jeddah gp 2023 #saudi arabia gp 2023 #ferrari

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #2022 #twitter #tweet #sen. bernie sanders #opec #opec crude oil #saudi arabia #oil and gas #gas prices #renewable energy #green new deal #green energy

[liam-93-productions]

Liam at the Battle of the Baddest in Saudi Arabia (x) - 28.10

#liam payne #twitter mention #liam with fans #battle of the baddest #liam in saudi arabia #28.10.2023

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

first off, fucking barbarians 2nd off "It's unclear how Saudi authorities were able to verify Alghamdi's identity on twitter". Yeah Elon. How'd that happen?

#saudi arabia #desert snakes #twitter #elon musk #death to kings #death to the rich

[crownspeaksblog]

It's so fucked up how queer people can never escape their religious, bigoted families.

Eden Knight was all the way in America and her family, her father still managed to smuggle her back to Saudi Arabia, torment her and cause her to take her life.

What the fuck did this young woman's death achieve other than more disdain and hatred towards these countries and their religion..

It doesn't matter how these people try to justify their actions and hatred towards trans and all kinds of queer people, surely a good, fair god wouldn't want this, surely..

#this just heartbreaking and it happens all the time.. it's very rare for something like this happening in the middle east to hit the news #so many people don't know i don't fucking know i only found out about this from Twitter #i doubt it will be on the news in the middle east #hopefully she'll get justice considering that she was living in America because i doubt she'll get it from Saudi Arabia #eden knight #justice for eden #transphobia #trans rights #trans lives matter #trans rights are human rights #trans #lgbtq rights

[gwydionmisha]

#Saudi Arabia #Twitter #Autocracy #Mohammed bin Salman #Manal al-Gafiri #News

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

According to Sheikh Abdul Latif Aziz al-Sheikh, those who use social media sites, especially Twitter, have not only lost this world but also their afterlife. The religious police head's remarks echo the concerns of Riyadh that Twitter is being used by Saudis to express opinions about sensitive political as well as other issues. The reason for the conservative kingdom's concern can be attributed to the fact that Saudi Arabia is seeing the world's fastest growth in the use of this social media platform according to the BBC. In April this year, the imam of Grand Mosque, Mecca, warned during the course of the sermon that Twitter was threatening Saudi's national unity.

The sermon was watched by millions on television. Grand Mufti, the most senior Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia, had earlier on called Twitter users “fools”. The verbal attacks on Twitter by the religious leaders are seen as part of a determined offensive launched against the social media platform by Saudi's establishment. Many of the Saudi citizens have seized the opportunity presented by Twitter to quickly and effectively communicate and express opinions in a traditionally conservative society.

The Kingdom's concern about Twitter stems from the fact that the social media platform has been made use of to keep people informed about human rights activists on trial. Twitter has been used not only to post tweets about the protests that the Eastern Province witnessed recently, but also to upload images of the human rights activists when the trial was underway in the court.

This prompted the authorities to initiate action to link Twitter accounts of Saudis with their ID numbers so that some amount of restriction can be imposed. Several online activists have been jailed. At least one of them has been detained for alleged apostasy which could carry a death penalty.

#islam #Saudi Arabia #islamic regime #blasphemy #blasphemy laws #Twitter #social media #religion #religious police #religion is a mental illness

[777grace]

للهروب من الحياه ✨

#tumblr #twitter #netflix #youtube #saudi #saudi arabia