The sister of a Saudi national jailed over tweets criticizing the authorities filed lawsuits Wednesday in California against Twitter and Saudi Arabia, accusing them of collaborating for “repressive” purposes.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, directly names the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and seeks a trial to award damages. Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a Saudi Red Crescent worker, was arrested in his office in Riyadh by Saudi secret police in March 2018, according to his family. He was then sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The aid worker, who had studied in the United States, had created an anonymous Twitter account through which he criticized the regime and retweeted certain opposition figures.
Employee convicted of espionage
In December 2022, a San Francisco court convicted a former Twitter employee of spying for Saudi officials, while another former employee of the company, suspected of having fled to Saudi Arabia, was wanted by US authorities for the same reasons.
Under the leadership of Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia is waging a sweeping crackdown on critics and dissenters, arresting activists, journalists, clerics and even members of the royal family.
Areej al-Sadhan, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan’s sister and a US citizen, claims in the complaint that she learned that the Saudi secret police had “broken (his brother’s) hand and crushed his fingers, and taunted him saying: ‘C is the hand you tweet with”
Electrocutions, whippings and isolation
The complaint also claims that Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was also subjected to electrocutions and whippings, and that he was placed in solitary confinement “for several years”. Twitter and the Saudi state are accused of illegally coordinating for financial gain.
“Unfortunately, Twitter has become an active tool of transnational repression to silence dissenting voices beyond Saudi Arabia’s borders (…), in order to monetize the commercial relationship” with the kingdom, says the complaint.
She further notes that a Saudi investment fund became the second largest shareholder last year. of Twitter after Elon Musk and that some of the Saudi shares had been sold to the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Areej al-Sadhan says he has been “on constant alert” since his brother’s arrest. She says she fears being abducted and living a “waking nightmare”.
