As Ophelia Benson rightly observes, Hamza Kashgari should never have been in prison in the first place. But it’s still welcome news that he has finally been released. A report of his arrest was first posted here early last year:
Hamza Kashgari has now been deported from Malaysia to Saudi Arabia where he faces the death penalty for tweets expressing ambivalent feelings about Mohammed. He has also implicitly criticised the Saudi regime through tweets such as ‘No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.’
Here’s a summary of recent developments from Zouhair Mazous:
Prior to the controversy, Hamza Kashgari worked as a columnist for the Saudi newspaper Al-Bilad, whichfired him five days before his arrest for the “”inadequacy of his general views for the approach of the newspaper.” An outspoken advocate of democracy and individual liberties, Kashgari is known in Saudi Arabia for his support of the Arab Spring. Twenty-four hours after posting his tweets about Prophet Mohamed, he participated in a sit-in calling for the expulsion of the Syrian Ambassador to Ryadh, for which he was briefly detained by the police. Commenting on the situation of women in the country, he once said that they “won’t go to hell ‘because it’s impossible to go there twice.’”
During his detention, Kashgari became the highest profile political prisoner in Saudi Arabia. His support campaign rallied thousands worldwide, and he was profiled on global outlets as a prisoner of conscience.
Straight out of jail, Kashgari opened a new Twitter account in which he expressed his relief. In less than 9 hours, the account’s followership reached more than 5300, confirming yet again one of the world’s oldest truths: jailing dissidents only makes them more popular.
When searching for other responses to this news – I found just one discordant note …
Hat tip: Ilisha
