Saudi Arabia imprisons an Egyptian worker for 19 years over a tweet

The Saudi judiciary has sentenced an Egyptian, Ahmed Mohamed Omar, to 19 years in prison over a tweet posted on platform [X], in which he criticized Turki Al-Sheikh, the head of the Entertainment Authority, during his dispute with the fans of the Egyptian Al Ahly club.

Ahmed was arrested in 2021, after nine months of arriving in Saudi Arabia to work, over a tweet published in 2019, before his arrival to Saudi Arabia. He remained forcibly disappeared for a year and a half until he was able to contact his family through a phone call, informing them that he was detained in Al Qassim prison.

In an attempt to save their son from a harsh sentence, Ahmed Mohamed Omar’s family reached out to several lawyers in Saudi Arabia, but to no avail, as fear of the authorities’ wrath and the risk of arrest prevented any lawyer from accepting to defend his case, adding his name to a long list of opinion prisoners suffering silently behind the walls of Saudi prisons.

SANAD Organisation for Human Rights strongly condemns the unjust sentence of 19 years’ imprisonment imposed on the Egyptian citizen Ahmed Mohamed Omar over a social media tweet, and calls on the Saudi authorities to immediately release him and all opinion prisoners unconditionally. SANAD Organisation emphasizes that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right that should not be infringed upon, and that prosecuting government critics represents an unjustified violation.