After a secret retrial, the Specialised Criminal Appeal Court in Saudi Arabia has resentenced political cartoonist Al Hazzaa – full name Mohammed Ahmad Eid Al Hazzaa al-Ghamdi – to 23 years in prison, as the authorities continue their drive to stifle free speech.
Al Hazzaa was arrested on 13 February 2018 in connection with his work as a cartoonist for the Qatari newspaper Lusail, and charged with offences that included “sympathising with Qatar”, “communicating with persons hostile to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, “producing, preparing and transmitting material prejudicial to public order through social media sites”, and opposing Saudi policy over the boycott imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia and allied states in 2017.
The Specialised Criminal Court (SCC), the Saudi court that handles terrorism-related cases, initially sentenced Al Hazzaa to six years in prison, reduced on appeal in September 2021 to three and a half years. It has now been revealed that earlier this year, after a secret retrial, the SCC Appeal Court drastically increased the penalty to 23 years, disregarding Al Hazzaa’s submissions in defence that he had been working for Lusail before Saudi Arabia cut ties with Qatar; that most of his work dealt with domestic Qatari affairs unrelated to tensions between the two countries; that Saudi-Qatari ties had been restored in 2021 through the signing of a reconciliation treaty; and that no evidence had been produced of the offending tweets for which Al Hazzaa was purportedly jailed.
This latest sentence passed on Al Hazzaa is just one of many lengthy punitive sentences imposed by the Saudi authorities since the diplomatic rehabilitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, starting with US President Joe Biden’s visit to Riyadh in July 2022. This relaxation of pressure on the kingdom’s leadership, which had been briefly ostracised on the world stage following the state-sponsored assassination in 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, has made way for a deterioration in the human rights situation in the kingdom and a resumption of repression against social media users, activists, reformers and popular content creators.
The artist’s sister, Asrar Al Hazzaa, commented: “Clearly, ignorant people can feel threatened by educated people, which makes them want to suppress or arrest such individuals. I believe the corruption in my country – Saudi Arabia – isn’t just because of Mohammed bin Salman; it’s a systemic problem rooted in untrained interrogators, hypocritical clerics and biased judges, and it goes right to the top of the government. Tyrants don’t understand, and maybe never will, that increased repression of the innocent only leads to more rejection and resistance. An example of this is what we’re seeing currently in Palestine. Courageous voices find their freedom in the face of fear.”
ALQST strongly condemns this arbitrary 23-year prison sentence. It calls on the Saudi authorities to quash all charges against Mohammed Al Hazzaa al-Ghamdi and immediately and unconditionally release him and all those currently detained in the kingdom for peacefully exercising their basic rights and freedoms.
