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17 tweets,
6 min read
Read on Twitter
How do I explain to you that Saudi Arabia may soon allow women to drive, while silencing dissent and criminalizing free speech? Yeah.
And this is as far as I can type tonight with a tweaked and painful wrist. Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.
So this is what they're going with. "Foreign parties". #ArabTyrantManual
So they were "foreign agents" working to "incite sedition" and "affect national unity". #ArabTyrantManual
And this is probably the desired effect.
More arrests - this time Saudi figures who were behind or ran TV channels.
If the regime has its way, Saudi twitter (the most dynamic in the entire Arab world) will turn into a space for government jingoism only.
Western media is catching up
Saudi cleric-televangelist Al-Arefi (probably Arab Twitter's most followed account), tweets in support of government
Clamp down on social media continues. Tweep summoned by security services for "support of Qatar".
Notably the account quoted above has under 900 followers. Not exactly a big or impactful account. But the goal is shutting down dissent.
More arrests expected. The names are from all across the ideological board.
More arrests confirmed, including @essamz, @almalki_80, and Dr. Khaled Al-Odeh (brother of @salman_alodah)
May I mention that both @almalki_80 and @essamz are amazing people and I want to voice my solidarity with them. Two brilliant minds.
Saudi Arabia is witnessing an assault on free expression and an attempt to shut down dissent that's cutting across all ideological divides.
Ex-head of Saudi religious police with a wtf tweet: "I see heads that are ripe, the time of picking them has come"
The previous quoted tweet borrows a line from Al-Hajjaj, a brutal Arab tyrant from the early Islamic era
