Areej al-Sadhansister of the humanitarian aid worker and online activist Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, one of the victims of the Saudi government’s illegal espionage who was abducted by the secret Saudi police, tortured and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Jim Waldenlawyer for the al-Sadhan family.
A jury in California has convicted a former worker at Twitter of spying for Saudi Arabia by providing the kingdom private information about Saudi dissidents. The spying effort led to the arrest, torture and jailing of Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, who ran an anonymous satirical Twitter account. His sister, Areej al-Sadhan, and the lawyer for the family, Jim Walden, are calling on the Biden administration to push for his release. “The brutality of the Saudi officials have no limits,” says Areej al-Sadhan. “Twitter and other social media companies have more than a little responsibility for what’s happening, not just with respect to Abdulrahman’s case and the case of other disappeared Saudi human rights activists and outspoken dissidents, but across a much broader array of misconduct,” says Walden.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
A jury in California has convicted a former Twitter employee of spying for Saudi Arabia by providing the kingdom private information about Saudi dissidents. Prosecutors accused the man, Ahmad Abouammo, of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a close aide of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in exchange for information about 6,000 Twitter accounts. One of the accounts belonged to the Saudi aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, who ran an anonymous satirical account critical of the Saudi kingdom. Four years ago, he was abducted by the secret Saudi police, tortured and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The jury’s decision comes just weeks after President Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The two men greeted each other with a fist bump.
We’re joined now by Abdulrahman al-Sadhan’s sister, Areej al-Sadhan, as well as Jim Walden, who’s an attorney for the al-Sadhan family.
Areej, let’s begin with you. Talk about what happened to your brother and how this relates to this jury finding this Twitter worker guilty of providing information about Twitter users to Saudi Arabia.
AREEJ AL-SADHAN: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me.
So, when I first heard the verdict, I couldn’t help but think about the suffering that my brother have went through all these years, and the suffering of my family and the many other families who are a victim of this hacking.
So, four years ago — more than four years ago, my brother was kidnapped from his work at the Red Cross in Riyadh and disappeared for years and deprived of any communication or even access to legal counsel. During his disappearance, he was brutally tortured with electric shocks, beatings, sleep deprivation. They broke his hand and smashed his fingers, saying, “This is the hand you tweet with.” My brother ended up in the intensive care unit for days, for almost a week, fighting for his life, as a result of the torture.
And only after three years of disappearance and held without any charge, he was brought to a secret sham trial, where he got sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, followed by 20 years travel ban, for running a satirical Twitter account. That same Twitter account was part of the Saudi government list of Twitter accounts that they wanted to hack.
And as we’ve seen from this case, this verdict, it represents a step forward towards accountability. But yet, still it’s not justice, because my brother is still disappeared. We have no communication whatsoever with my brother at all. We’ve been deprived completely from any communication with my brother. He’s been held in solitary confinement for years, deprived of any contact with us at all.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what kind of recourse do you have right now? And have you been in touch with the Biden administration, not to mention the leadership at Twitter?
AREEJ AL-SADHAN: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve been in contact with the U.S. officials continuously about my brother’s case. The recent visit of President Biden to Saudi Arabia — unfortunately, there haven’t been any improvement to human rights. My brother continues to be disappeared. We haven’t been able to communicate with him at all. And instead from President Biden promising to improve human rights and make human rights the center of his foreign policy, instead he rewarded MBS with a fist bump, basically validating MBS on the world stage, emboldening MBS to commit more human rights abuses against our families, our loved ones and against many innocent people. It is really terrifying for us and many other victims out there of this brutal regime. And unfortunately, so far we haven’t heard any news or any update about my brother’s case. He continues to be disappeared. We have no communication whatsoever with my brother.
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