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Prominent Saudi columnist jailed for accusing Royal Court of corruption

February 9, 2018 at 1:47 pm

Saudi columnist, Saleh Al-Shehi [Twitter]

A prominent Saudi columnist has been jailed for five years for criticising the country’s Royal Courts, the official body that represents the king and crown prince.

State-linked Saudi newspaper, Okaz, reported yesterday that a specialised criminal court had sentenced Saleh Al-Shehi for “insulting the royal court”.

Al-Shehi, who is a columnist for Arabic-language daily Al-Watan was awaiting the courts verdict following his arrest in January over comments he had made on TV. The arrest was heavily criticised by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) who demanded his release.

Saudi royals appear to have been deeply offended by Al-Shehi’s comments over Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s “anti –corruption” clampdown. The popular commentator with nearly 1.2 million followers on Twitter, had accused the Royal Court of being “one of the institutions that reinforced corruption” in the country, citing examples such as granting plots of land to citizens based on personal connections.

According to the Financial Times, Al-Shehi had said “if we want to end financial corruption then we must first shutter the windows for administrative corruption.” He went on to say that “there are in the Royal Court many windows from which people can enter.”

Read: Saudi releases detainees as corruption purge raises $106bn

Al-Shehi was implying that any Saudi citizen who has a contact within the Royal Court automatically has an advantage in buying strategically located land unavailable to the public.

The CPJ who previously demanded Al-Shehi’s release denounced the verdict. “The emerging leadership’s promises of openness and reform in Saudi Arabia seem to end where critical reporting and independent journalism begin,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour, in Washington, D.C. “Saudi authorities should free Saleh Al-Shehi immediately and stop going after journalists who report inconvenient news.”

The campaigner for press freedom worldwide also reported that Saudi authorities were holding at least seven journalists behind bars as of 1 December 2017.

Saudi Arabia ranks 168 out of 180 countries for free expression, according to the 2017 World Press Freedom Index.