- Overview
The Saudi authorities were involved in a good deal of espionageand hacking of social media accounts scandals, as news spread about bribing some technicians inside Dubai’s Twitter regional office, recruiting others to use them inside the office. One is the scandal that a Saudi engineer, Ali al-Zabara, has identified activists opposing the authorities in the Kingdom, using his former Twitter business privileges. The Dubai Regional Office’s breach was behind the arrests of several Saudi Arabian tweeps in 2017 and 2018, most notably admins of “Kashkoul” account, “E3tekal – arrest”, “Samahti, “Ghassat Al Hanin” and “Sharazad Barida”.
Moreover, the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman was involved in hacking the Amazon founder and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos’s phone, just before the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi authorities also used Israeli piracy technology to spy on political activists and opponents abroad. It is known that the Israeli “NSO” group developed the “Pegasus” spy program which was used by Saudi Arabia. It is a program that turns smartphones into eavesdropping devices. On August 31, 2018, U.S. media reported the UAE’s attempt to spy on the phone of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a Saudi prince and some Saudi dissidents through the Israeli company itself.
In 2017, the Kingdom also bought software from Italian Hacking Team, which prevents criticism of the government and the regime, by spying on Saudis on the Internet and all social networks.
Those programs enabled the Saudi authorities to control cyberspace inside the Kingdom. Through spyingmalware that facilitated the identification of any citizen who has different opinions other than those which are imposed on the public and publishes opinions critical of the regime or its officials, in an attempt to suppress reformist or critical views of the policies of Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.
- Developments in the ICT sector
Saudi Arabia has a population of about 34 million, and the number of Saudi citizens is about 21 million Saudis, while the number of foreigners and residents to work reaches about 13 million individuals. The rise in the number of arrivals comes despite the departure of more than 1.6 million foreigners after the increase in foreign labor escorts fees since July 2017.
The Kingdom’s telecommunications sector is based on the mobile phone, and according to the performance indicators issued by the Telecommunications and Information Technology Authority, the mobile subscribers rose to about 41.6 million, while the landline subscribers settled at about 3.1 million. The landline and mobile broadband subscribers rose to 31.41 million subscribers.[1] Internet users in Saudi Arabia reach about 30 million users.
- The legal environment of the ICT sector
Saudi Arabia was not satisfied with laws and regulations that it possesses but has recently enacted some legislation that enables it to silence all opponents. On the 1st of November 2017, Royal Decree No. 21 of the Law on combating terrorism and financing terrorist crimes was promulgated. This law is considered a sword on the Internet activists’ necks because it includes vague and elastic expressions of terrorist acts. Also, it approved the sentence of imprisonment for a term not less than 5 years and not more than ten years for anyone who describes – directly or indirectly – the king or the Crown Prince in any description doubting their religion or justice.[2]
On May 28, 2019, the Cabinet issued a regulation “on the use of information and telecommunication technologies in government bodies” following Ministerial decree No. 555 of May 27, 2019. The resolution contains some important requirements that government agencies have to comply with, including information security, the agency’s website, email, and social media pages.[3]
- Social networks
The Saudis love social media networks, as the users of Social Media reached approximately 23 million, making Saudi Arabia the highest Arab country in terms of annual increase of social media users, and users of Facebook exceed 18 million, users of Instagram reached about 13 million. While the number of Twitter users reached about 11 million, the rate of increase in the number of Twitter users declined after the hacked account violations, some of them moved to the small social network of Parlor, moreover, Twitter removed thousands of “fake” accounts supporting the Saudi government, that has established an “electronic trolling committee” to promote its policies online.
- Blocking and censorship
Without a judicial decision, and by a decision of an executive officer in the Telecommunications and Information Technology Authority, more than one million links on the Internet were blocked during 2017.[4] The block is not restricted to pornographic websites as the organization claims, but it includes news and human rights websites, for example, the Saudi authorities blocked Al Jazeera Net websites. Qatar News Agency (QNA), Al Watan, Al-Raya, Al-Arab, Al-Sharq, Al-Jazeera Media Group, Al-Jazeera Documentary, and Al-Jazeera English, on May 24, 2017, following statements by the Emir of Qatar on Iran, Hamas, the Brotherhood and Al-Adid.
The audio-visual communication service in Whatsapp was re-blocked on March 12, 2019, hours after its sudden operation, despite the announcement by the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, on September 13, 2017, that the block has been lifted from voice and video calls, nevertheless, blocking voice and video calls is still in effect. The Saudi Ministry of Information also began on July 29, 2019, under article 16, paragraph 3, of the electronic publishing system, websites, forums and Snapchat accounts carrying names of tribes, cities or public places shall be blocked.
- Prosecution and security threats
The Kingdom imposed a media blackout on detentions, names of prisoners arrested, the blackout was imposed also on trial sessions, which are supposed to be open. During the period covered by this report, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information monitored the following violations:
Trial of writer Essam Al Zamil
The special criminal court in Riyadh began on October 1, 2018, hearing the lawsuit filed by the public prosecution against economic affairs writer Essam Al Zamil on several charges, including “seeking to shake the social fabric and national coherence, and provoking sedition inside the Kingdom through using social media sites. He also is accused of challenging the domestic policies, judicial and security institutions, to question their integrity, describing them as unfair and to challenge the foreign policies of the regime, to incite demonstrations and sit-ins, and to communicate with Qatar”, after criticizing plans of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad Bin Salman, for offering five percent of the shares of the government company Aramco to the public subscription. Essam al-Zamil has been on trial since his arrest in September 2017.
Trial of Loujain al-Hathloul, a women’s rights advocate
The trial of a social media activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, known for her defiance of the Law on preventing Women from driving cars, began on March 13, 2019, claiming “to harm the country’s interests and support hostile figures abroad,” after her arrest on May 14, 2018, on the background of her activity in defending women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.
It is worth mentioning that the security services have detained Loujain more than once from King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on 4 June 2017, and her detention continued for 3 days. She was arrested in late 2014 and detained for more than 70 days for criticizing the government online and for defending for the right to drive cars.
Arresting activist Kholoud Al Yafei
Saudi security forces arrested Kholoud Al-Yafei on Tuesday, July 18, 2017, and interrogated her for several hours before her release that same evening, because of a video broadcast on social media, showing her wandering in the traditional village of Bashkadis, in Shaqra governorate (190 km northwest of the capital Riyadh) with ashort-skirt and a T-shirt that reveals her arms.
Arresting activist Noha Al Balwi
Saudi security forces arrested activist Noha Al Balwi, on 23rd January 2018, on the background of broadcasting a video on her Twitter account criticizing the Saudi authorities for normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel. The authorities blocked her account, confiscated her devices and suspended all her social media accounts then she was released on 22nd February 2019.
Trial of activist Mohammed bin Abdullah al Otaibi
On January 25, 2018, the Specialized Criminal Court sentenced human rights activist Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Otaibi to 14 years in prison, on charges of “participation in the preparation, drafting, and issuance of several online statements that include an offense to the Kingdom’s reputation” and “the establishment and publication of an association before obtaining the necessary licenses”. Mohammed al-Otaibi traveled to Qatar in March 2017, after lifting his travel ban on the case, he claimed asylum in Norway, and on the evening of May 24, 2017, Qatari authorities arrested Mohammed al-Otaibi at Hamad International Airport while traveling to a third country. He was handed over to the Saudi authorities the following morning before he could challenge his extradition decision.
The arrest of writer Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jaser
Press writer Turki bin Abdul Aziz al-Jaser, from his home on the evening of March 15, 2018, was arrested by plainclothes police officers as the account holder of Kishkol, a specialist in the dissemination of information on human rights violations by members of the royal family and officials in Saudi Arabia, and in November 2018, Press news spread about Turki Al-Jaser’s death under torture, but local authorities did not confirm nor deny that news.
Yemeni-born journalist Marwan Al-Marsi detained
Saudi security forces arrested Yemeni-born journalist Marwan al-Marsi, 37, from his home on June 1, 2018, without announcing the place of his detention, for his activism on Twitter. Al-Marsi was forcibly disappeared for about a year until he called his wife by phone on May 13, 2019, in a short call for the first time since his detention as it was the first time for her to know that he is still alive. Marwan Al-Marsi is the owner of the account, “Samahti,” and is famous for defending prisoners of opinion in Saudi Arabia, and for mocking religious scholars loyal to the Saudi authorities.
Arresting academic Omar Al Moqbel
Saudi authorities, on 10th September 2019, arrested professor in Sharia (Islamic law) in Qassim University, Omar Moqbel, for a video published showing him criticizing the entertainment body, led by Turki Al-Sheikh.
[1] Telecom & Information Technology Performance Index Report, last visit November 15th, 2019 https://www.citc.gov.sa/ar/indicators/DocLib/ICTIndicators-Q12019Ar.pdf
[2] The Counter-Terrorism Crime System (CTC) ion the website of the Council of Ministers, the last visit of 16 November 2019 https://laws.boe.gov.sa/BoeLaws/Laws/LawDetails/57694209-3eed-46c7-a5d8-a9ed012761d4/1
[3] Controls on the use of Information and Communication technologies in government agencies, on the website of the Cabinet of Experts, last visit on 16 November 2019https://laws.boe.gov.sa/BoeLaws/Laws/Viewer/5d817837-2898-4a9a-a0c9-aa6400f17274?lawId=eb1ceceb-d684-404c-afd7-aa6400f17220
[4] A statement by the Communications and Information Technology Commission, “TRA addresses more than one million blocking requests for links that violate the end of 2017”, published May 13, 2018, and the last visit of November 16, 2019, https://www.citc.gov.sa/ar/mediacenter/pressreleases/Pages/2018051301.aspx
