A Saudi artist has been sentenced to more than two decades in prison for political cartoons that allegedly criticized the Gulf kingdom’s leadership.
Mr. Mohammed al-Hazza, a 48-year-old father of five, was taken into custody in Saudi Arabia in February 2018. The arrest occurred during a forceful raid conducted by security personnel, who entered his residence and thoroughly searched his studio, as reported by the London-based Sanad Human Rights Organization in an official statement.
Court Resend Saudi Cartoonist To 23 Years Imprisonment For Satirical Drawings That ‘Insulted The Kingdom’s Leaders’
A court document seen by AFP says the charges against him concern ‘offensive cartoons’ he produced for the Qatari newspaper Lusail as well as social media posts that were allegedly ‘hostile’ to Saudi Arabia and supportive of Qatar.
Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court, set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases, initially sentenced Hazza to six years in prison.
But this year, as Hazza was preparing to be released, the case was re-opened and he was sentenced to 23 years, his sister Asrar al-Hazza told AFP by phone from the United States.
‘He was almost there… He almost left the prison. But then out of nowhere it was opened again and it was 23 years,’ she said.
Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the case on Wednesday.
Sanad said in its statement that Hazza worked for Lusail mostly before the 2017 boycott ‘and only briefly afterward’ and that most of his cartoons concerned domestic Qatari issues.
The group said prosecutors failed to provide evidence of cartoons that were offensive to Saudi Arabia or social media posts that backed Qatar during the boycott.
Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has been criticised for what activists describe as a fierce crackdown on even vaguely critical online speech.
In the past two years, the Saudi judiciary has ‘convicted and handed down lengthy prison terms on dozens of individuals for their expression on social media’, human rights groups Amnesty International and ALQST said in April.
Saudi officials say the accused committed terrorism-related offences.
‘The case of Mohammed al-Hazza is one example of the suppression of freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia, which has not spared anyone, including artists,’ Sanad operations manager Samer Alshumrani told AFP.
‘This is supported by the politicised, non-independent judiciary in Saudi Arabia.’
Al-Hazza’s sentence comes days after Saudi Arabia was denied a seat on the UN’s Human Rights Council.