Source: Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism in hundreds of Twitter posts.
Al-Watan online daily said Saturday that religious police in charge of monitoring social networks found more than 600 tweets denying the existence of God, ridiculing Quranic verses, accusing all prophets of lies and saying their teachings fueled hostilities.
It says the 28-year-old man admitted to being an atheist and refused to repent, saying that what he wrote reflected his own beliefs and that he had the right to express them. The report did not name the man.
The court also fined him 20,000 riyals, about $5,300.
Categories: Atheism, Free speach, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Social Media, The Muslim Times
By giving him such a punishment, what do the Saudis hope to achieve? Make a ‘believer’ from an unrepentant atheist?
These people claim to follow the Qur’an, so where in our Holy Book is such a punishment valid? And should the man have ‘repented’, as they wanted, what kind of a believer would he have been?
Aren’t these so-called Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia is not alone with this kind of thinking), encouraging hypocrisy in the populace? And what are they trying to achieve with such awful sentences, anyway?
They seem to read the Qur’an without it having any effect on them… as it (Qur’an), says, ‘Deaf, dumb and blind. They will NOT see…’
If the Saudis do not want the guy within their country let them exile him to some Atheist country. I think China qualifies best.
Exactly!!!