|
Riyadh: Saudi authorities have detained a popular blogger for violating the laws, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Tuesday. It was the first known arrest of a Saudi online critic.
The blogger, Fouad Al Farhan, was being questioned by security authorities, Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Monsour Al Turki said. He added the blogger "might be released" yesterday but did not elaborate.
The Saudi English daily, Arab News, said Al Farhan had "violated non-security regulations".
Website letter
The paper said the 32-year-old Jeddah resident was arrested at his office on December 10 and taken to his home where police conducted a search.
There were no other details on the arrest.
His family has contacted the governmental Human Rights Commission, asking for help in the case, the paper said.
Al Farhan's blog headline reads: 'Searching for freedom, dignity, justice, equality, shura and all the rest of lost Islamic values'.
Following the arrest, Al Farhan's friends who are now running his website, posted a letter allegedly from the blogger claiming he was told by an official there was an Interior Ministry order "to investigate me and they will pick me up anytime in the next two weeks". In it, he also said he believed authorities were after him because he "wrote about political prisoners in Saudi Arabia". "They think I am leading a campaign promoting their case, reforms and change, but all I did was write some articles and columns, and I asked other bloggers to do the same," the letter said.
Al Farhan added in his purported letter that officials asked him to sign an apology but that he wasn't ready to do that. "An apology for what? Apologising because I said the government is liar when it accused those people of supporting terrorism," he said.
Intimidation
Another Saudi blogger, Ahmad Al Omran, told Arab News Al Farhan's arrest could have been an attempt to intimidate other bloggers. Al Omran was quoted as saying that the writings of Al Farhan, one of few that blog in his real name, "were not at all provocative but very much rational".
|
