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THE UNITED STATES said today that it was raising a prison sentence handed to a US citizen with Saudi Arabia, when over tweets the man made critical of the kingdom.
The State Department confirmed the detention of Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a US citizen of Saudi origin, and said the United States brought up his case starting in December and as recently as yesterday.
“We have consistently and intensively raised our concerns regarding the case at senior levels of the Saudi government, both through channels in Riyadh and Washington, DC,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
“Exercising freedom of expression should never be criminalized,” he said.
The Washington Post reported that Almadi, who lives in Florida and had gone to visit family, was detained in November at the airport regarding 14 tweets he wrote over the previous seven years.
Quoting his son, the newspaper said that Almadi, who is 72, was sentenced on 3 October to 16 years in prison with a travel ban of another 16 years after that.
His son, Ibrahim, told the newspaper that his father had expressed only “mild” opinions with tweets mentioning corruption in Saudi Arabia and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the US-based columnist who was dismembered in 2018 after being lured into the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.
Almadi was charged in part with supporting and funding terrorism and trying to destabilize the kingdom, his son said.
The death of Khashoggi, who wrote for The Washington Post, triggered outrage in Washington although then president Donald Trump boasted of saving the powerful crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, from major repercussions.
President Joe Biden declassified intelligence that showed that the crown prince ordered the killing and vowed to get tougher, including over Saudi Arabia’s deadly offensive in Yemen.
Biden in July nonetheless traveled to Saudi Arabia and was photographed in a fist-bump with the crown prince on a trip seen as seeking the kingdom’s help to lower gas prices by pumping more oil.
But OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia, on October 5 announced a major cut in production just ahead of US congressional elections, outraging Biden who vowed consequences.
Saudi Arabia has long faced criticism over human rights. Blogger and rights activist Raif Badawi served 10 years in prison through March and was publicly lashed 50 times for charges over content on his website.
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Apart from saving the environment, moving to renewable energy sources will reduce the power that regimes like Russia and Saudi Arabia have.
You look at the awful human rights abuses of women in Iran, and then you look at what it’s like for women in Saudi Arabia…an entirely different and even more awful world.
@Kevin Farrell: but Saudi aren’t in the Axis of Evil… So they’re alright then. Right?
I think I’ll send a few tweets now myself just to remind myself that I will never set foot on Saudi’s bloodied sand.
@Brendan O’ Gorman: I worked there for a few years and the work was fine,the people I worked with all stayed on and still there.We learnt a lot,first and foremost u must see everything with your own eyes to form an objective opinion.U clearly haven’t learnt that lesson and never will.
@Paul Owens: they taught you how to be obtuse and vague?
@Paul Owens: I’m sure the money was fine, Paul, but how you could read the above article and think this is a country worth defending in any capacity is beyond me
@Paul Owens: what proportion of the people you worked with were female?
@Míchael Búrké: Obtuse,vague,ok,apart from a redundant health services here,can’t buy a house,slave to landlords,can’t walk the streets at night will I go on…u do all those things in Saudi no problems,,as I said u have to see the whole picture not your myopic view along with all the others who never worked or seen the place
@Paul Owens: built on slave labour the whole place..can’t understand how people go on holidays there. Wouldn’t even do a stop over myself. !
@Barbara Coleman: I was in Dubai and disliked there. Men who think Saudi was fine are looking at things from their eyes. Have you ever seen American Dad Saudi episode?? Hilarious well worth seeking out
@Paul Owens: I can’t. I cannot travel over to Saudi and walk the streets alone. If you cannot stand on the mains st n say the leader is an d*ck then that country is not anywhere I would care to be
@Sharon Brennan: Tell me that when u have no home to live in and are on the streets with the rain pisssing down,, amazing how opinions will change
@Barbara Coleman: u would go there if u had to,and learn not judge from a distance!
@Sharon Brennan: u were there on your holidays I assume?and if so ain’t u v lucky to be able to afford to go.
Ah trumps pals.
Ah the great repressive countries of the world… Can’t really live with them and unfortunately can’t nuke em…
Guantanamo Bay. Obama has kept it. Biden has kept it.
Imagine if he knew his crime was a national sport here!
Don’t they know only the US are allowed to treat US citizens poorly.
Saudi most hateful regime in world
Diabolical grammar in the first paragraph ….. Sub-editor on his break.
@Aisling Boyle: Diabolical comment to be fair Aisling. Why try ruin a person who may or maybe not realise a mistake. Having said that Aisling anything to say on the article itself?
@Aisling Boyle: Well it was a piece robbed from AFP so can’t have a go at The Journal guys here!
@Ciarán O’ Donoghue: The bloodie google translate needs a smack on the side.
@Aisling Boyle: huh? The man made critical of the kingdom, what’s your problem?
@Paul Gorry: The journal should have someone proof read their articles before they post, It would
only take a few minutes, this app is used by hundreds of thousands of people. It’s very unprofessional.
@Paul Gorry: the grammar is awful, clearly not proof read and it’s right to highlight this
@Julian King: the piece is another persons work and has been taken from another site maybe the journal doesn’t have the right to alter it ?
Meanwhile we IJsselmeer Dublin project the Saudi flag on the Samuel Beckett bridge every year. Why? To sell some cows?
@Peter McGlynn: *we in Dublin.
Saudi Arabia has no interest in anything apart for themselves, there is too much money for the well-off. In January, a businessman paid $14.3 million(!) for a local licence plate labelled “1” at an auction.
Send them back from whence they came.Riding Camels.
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