Saudi student sentenced to 34 years in prison over Twitter posts | Hacker News Reader

Saudi student sentenced to 34 years in prison over Twitter posts

euronews.com

51 pointsSami_Lehtinen19 comments

SA is morphing from a medieval theocratic kingdom into a modern authoritarian state with all power concentrated in hands of a single, arguably secular, dictator in front of our eyes.

I suspect we can call this progress, from the 1400s right into the 1930s.

There was a statement by some Saud or other 10+ years ago about how their modernization plans would appear to be slow to the eyes of westerners, due to the relative tolerances of the populations they lead. (I don't recall the specific individual.)

Believe what you want about this claim, that's a justification for how it goes over there.

If my memoey serves me well, this is almost exact words I heard about SA modernization plan 2-3 years ago.

Ie you can up your anecdata on this from n=1 to... n=1.5, I think.

Oil got more expensive, the Saudi ledership got complacent. Maybe if there's a food crisis they'll wake up, but many people in poorer countries would die, so hopefully not. The sooner we get off oil, the better. Bonus: Iran and Russian leadership is going to be screwed up as well.

How would you argue he is secular? Last time I checked KSA had an official religion, apostasy was punished (in theory) by death and one of its main cities (Mecca) was forbidden to non-muslims.

Religion is used to keep the masses in check but the elites are free to drink and womanize as much as they want.

This is horrible, but I have to question her judgement. Everyone knows what Saudi Arabia is. Why would you make posts supporting dissidents, and travel back to the kingdom.

> Initially, the mother of two young children was sentenced to serve six years in prison

If you're from a country like that and have small kids, maybe put your Twitter aside and leave the activism to someone else.

Seriously.

The kids need a mother more than a nation needs a martyr.

Originated in a country with egregious rights violations, smeared said country in public, went back and got imprisoned for it, when did people stop considering consequences? It's likely you'll be reprimanded for things like that so either don't do it in public or better, don't go back...

Reminds me of the old rules of life under communism: 1) Don't think. 2) If you do think, don't speak. 3) If you think and speak, don't write. 4) If you think, speak and write, don't sign. 5) And if you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.

Pretty accurate, if the risk of speaking out is death, you don't speak out you at least attempt to go somewhere where death isn't the only choice

Disgusting victim blaming. Not surprised this is a throwaway account.

Is victim advicing, not victim blaming, and is a really, really good advice for youngsters: All that you do on internet can be used against you later. Despite what you have been told all your life, privacy is good for you.

Thank you it's novel to see someone get my point - perhaps could be better phrased but the point still remains

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