Pak Sahafat – The news media reported that a Saudi university figure was sentenced to 23 years in prison for criticizing the House of Saud.
According to the international group of Pak Sahafat news agency, the Saudi court sentenced “Khalid Al-Ajimi” to 23 years in prison, the academic figure who was arrested for criticizing the Saudi authorities.
The “Freedom of Expression Detainees” user account, which is related to the follow-up of freedom of expression prisoners in Saudi Arabia, wrote on Twitter on Monday: Khalid Al-Ajimi was sentenced to 23 years in prison after his re-arrest in November 2021.
Al-Ajimi is among the academics, preachers, activists and human rights defenders who were arrested in September 2017. After that, the Saudi judiciary sentenced him to 3 years and 8 months of imprisonment on the charge of commenting on Al Saud.
The academic figure was released in August 2021, but Saudi authorities re-arrested him only about 2 months after his release.
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The number of detained journalists in Saudi Arabia has tripled since 2017
Since Mohammed bin Salman assumed the position of crown prince in June 2017, he has launched a massive wave of arrests, including many human rights activists, journalists, businessmen and preachers.
The user account “Freedom of Expression Detainees” announced in the latest statistics that there are 2,613 political prisoners from all walks of life and groups in several Al Saud prisons.
During the past weeks, the Saudi judiciary issued a long prison sentence for a number of Saudi missionaries and increased the sentence of Sheikh “Nasser al-Omar” from 10 years to 30 years in prison. Also, Sheikh “Abdul Rahman Al-Mahmoud” was sentenced to 25 years, Sheikh “Essam Al-Owaid” to 27 years and Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Dawish to 15 years.
In the meantime, the Saudi female activist “Salmi Shahab” received one of the most controversial sentences from the Saudi judicial system. She was recently sentenced to 34 years in prison just for publishing a few tweets. Also, the Saudi authorities issued a 45-year prison sentence against another Saudi activist Noura Al-Qahtani.
Saudi Arabia faces international criticism for its conditions of freedom of expression and human rights, detaining a large number of intellectuals, scholars, journalists and human rights defenders, as well as a number of prominent human rights activists.
The Al-Saud regime wants to show that no activist or critic is safe and controls and silences them through spying tools. In the past, the Saudi regime oppressed unique people, but today, the repression of this regime has included all classes of scholars, princes, missionaries, clerics, and even children and women, and the actions of Al Saud have created new movements inside and outside the country against this.