A
Saudi journalist has been sentenced to five years in prison over tweets
deemed insulting to the kingdom’s rulers, Amnesty International said on
Friday.
Alaa Brinji, who has reportedly already
served two years behind bars, was found guilty on Thursday of a list of
charges including “insulting the rulers (and) inciting public
opinion,” the rights group said in a statement.
Brinji was also convicted of “accusing
security officers of killing protesters” in the Shiite town of Awamiya
in Saudi’s restive Eastern Province, it added.
The group said the journalist had been
tried in a “notorious” counter-terrorism court that also found Brinji
guilty of “ridiculing Islamic religious figures”.
In addition to the jail term, Brinji has
been slapped with a fine of 50,000 riyals ($13,333) and an eight-year
travel ban, it said, pointing out that he has been in detention since
May 2014, including an initial period of incommunicado solitary
confinement.
Amnesty’s regional deputy head James Lynch slammed Brinji’s sentence as “utterly shameful”.
“He is the latest victim of Saudi
Arabia’s ruthless crackdown on peaceful dissent, where the aim appears
to be to completely wipe out any and all voices of criticism,” he said.
“Putting someone behind bars for
peacefully exercising his legitimate right to freedom of expression, and
defending the rights of others to do so, is a complete distortion of
the very notion of justice.
“The authorities must ensure his conviction is quashed and release him immediately and unconditionally,” Lynch added, insisting that Saudi Arabia “must be held accountable for its gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
Amnesty said Brinji worked for Saudi newspapers Al-Bilad, Okaz and Al-Sharq.
Awamiya, a town of about 30,000 in Eastern Province, has been the scene of repeated incidents since 2011.
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