Impromptus

Tweet and be killed, &c.

By
Saudi boss Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, May 19, 2023 (Bandar Algaloud / Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court / Handout via Reuters)
On Saudi Arabia, Elon Musk, Iran, a Nazi defendant, online porn, an Oklahoma QB, and more

‘Man Sentenced to Death for Tweets: Peaceful Criticism on Social Media Brings Death Penalty.” That is a report from Human Rights Watch, about Saudi Arabia. You can read about this case in a report from the Associated Press, too. The AP says the case is the latest in a “wide-ranging crackdown on dissent.” The man sentenced to death is Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54.

By the way, he had two X accounts. (Elon Musk has changed the name of the platform from “Twitter” to “X.”) One of the accounts had two followers, the other eight.

Last year, CNN reported,

Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal helped Musk finance the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (TWTR) by rolling over his existing $1.9 billion stake in the social media company. The move makes Saudi entities the second-largest shareholder in Twitter — behind only Musk himself.

When he bought Twitter, Musk tweeted,

The Saudi prince replied to him,

“Together all the way.” Sure.


More in Saudi Arabia

At the Oslo Freedom Forum in May 2022, I spoke with Areej al-Sadhan, whose brother, Abdulrahman, is a political prisoner in Saudi Arabia. He was imprisoned for writing tweets critical of the government. He has, of course, been tortured, undergoing the usual hell.

I will provide one detail. When agents smashed his hand, they said, “Is this the one you tweet with?”

Obviously, the Saudi dictatorship is a popular one with many. Mohammed bin Salman, the boss, cuts a dashing figure. He is widely known by the initials “MBS.” He is popular with many of the same people who admire Vladimir Putin.

The Saudis have a lot of money to throw around, naturally. Six months after he left the White House, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, took $2 billion from them, for his private-equity firm. The Saudis are funding professional golf. Etc.

But it is well to remember that this dictatorship is a nasty, murderous one: the kind that tortures and kills people for tweeting.

• A report from the Washington Post begins,

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has played a major role in allowing Russian propaganda about Ukraine to reach more people than before the war began, according to a study released this week by the European Commission . . .

A report from the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), published in the Times of Israel, begins,

Elon Musk is engaging with white nationalists and antisemites who want to ban the Anti-Defamation League from Twitter, the influential social media platform he now calls “X.”

Musk on Saturday asked his followers whether he should poll the platform about a hashtag, #BanTheADL, embraced in recent days by white nationalists and others on the far right.

Musk had earlier “liked” the tweet launching the hashtag by Keith Woods, an Irish white nationalist and self-described “raging antisemite.”

And so on.

• Let me return to the subject of Saudi Arabia — for a report in the Guardian has just come to my attention:

The social media company formerly known as Twitter has been accused in a revised civil US lawsuit of helping Saudi Arabia commit grave human rights abuses against its users, including by disclosing confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities at a much higher rate than it has for the US, UK or Canada.

The lawsuit was brought last May against X, as Twitter is now known, by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail.

What a miserable business. And the sisterly devotion of Areej — the love she has shown for Abdulrahman, consigned to a dungeon — is very moving, to me. I could tell when I met her and talked with her: She and her family will do anything for him. They will not let him be forgotten and abandoned.

• From Iran, here is something heartening — heartening in a way:

Iranian authorities have dismissed at least 10 university professors who supported nationwide protests that began last September following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

That report is from RFE/RL (our combination of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty). What is heartening, I think, is the bravery of those professors. Think what they risked. Think what they have sacrificed.

Maybe they will begin teaching again someday, in a freer Iran.

• Opinions will vary here:

A 98-year-old man has been charged in Germany with being an accessory to murder as a guard at the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen concentration camp between 1943 and 1945, prosecutors said Friday.

The German citizen, a resident of Main-Kinzig county near Frankfurt, is accused of having “supported the cruel and malicious killing of thousands of prisoners as a member of the SS guard detail,” prosecutors in Giessen said in a statement. They did not release the suspect’s name.

He is charged with more than 3,300 counts of being an accessory to murder between July 1943 and February 1945.

I have quoted from an AP report — and I say: Do it for as long as you can. We have only a few more years left. Keep doing it, till the last day.

(Again, opinions will vary, and I certainly understand other ones.)

• Pornography is one of the most important issues in America. Vast amounts of it are being consumed, and a lot of it is being consumed by minors. There are important considerations here, some of them legal. I recommend a column by David French: “Ban Online Porn for Kids.” Very thoughtful, and persuasive (as usual from this writer).

• Would you like to hear about a beautiful day? “Ronald Acuña Jr. had a full day,” an article begins. Okay: full day, beautiful day — a day beautiful and full. The article continues,

The Atlanta Braves star got married in the morning, hit a landmark grand slam and ended the night beating NL MVP rival Mookie Betts and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He hopes to postpone the honeymoon until November.

• My friend Sherm in Indiana wrote to say,

Was watching the Oklahoma game this afternoon and this name popped up as the OU QB — third or fourth string: “General Booty.” Thought you might get a kick out of it.

For sure. I forwarded Sherm’s note to our Mark Antonio Wright, an OU graduate. And he forwarded to me a news clip about an ad that young Mr. Booty has made: here.

I don’t like the professionalization of college sports. But — amusing.

• The other day, I passed a dealership selling what the sign called “pre-owned cars.” I wonder: Are people insulted by this? This euphemism for “used”? It is a euphemism that is almost comical. Or do they feel better about buying cars that are “pre-owned” rather than “used”?

I suspect the latter is true — because marketers research these questions to the nth degree, is my impression.

• The weather is hot — in the 90s — where I live. Yet the shops are selling pumpkin-spice baked goods and other such products. I am annoyed by this, even as I consume the products . . .

• What a joy, this is. Click on this puppy:

Thanks for joining me, my friends, and see you later.

If you would like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.

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