MOHAMMED
NASSER AL-GHAMDI

Background and Work

Mohammed Nasser Al-Ghamdi was born in 1968 and worked as a teacher in Abha, a city in the southwestern highlands of Saudi Arabia. He used social media platforms—primarily Twitter and YouTube—to discuss issues of public concern, including corruption and human rights violations within the Kingdom. His posts also expressed support for prominent religious scholars who had been detained by Saudi authorities.

Al-Ghamdi's engagement online was consistent with a broader pattern of quiet dissent among teachers, clerics, and other citizens whose criticism did not rise to the level of formal political organizing but who nonetheless used digital platforms to comment on state policies and practices.

The Family Dimension

Mohammed Al-Ghamdi's brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, is a well-known Islamic scholar and vocal critic of the Saudi government who has lived in exile in the United Kingdom for years. Another brother, Assad Al-Ghamdi, was sentenced to twenty years in prison in Saudi Arabia. Saeed has publicly stated his belief that the harsh sentences handed to Mohammed and Assad are acts of retaliation for his own outspoken opposition to human rights violations in the Kingdom.

The targeting of family members of critics abroad is a documented tactic of transnational repression employed by the Saudi state. Relatives remaining in the Kingdom are arrested, prosecuted, or subjected to travel bans and asset freezes in order to pressure exiled dissidents into silence or return. Mohammed Al-Ghamdi's case fits this pattern: a teacher detained, tried under counterterrorism law, and sentenced to decades in prison for posts that mentioned his brother's cause and echoed his brother's concerns.

Arrest and Enforced Disappearance

Al-Ghamdi was arrested on 11 June 2022. For the first four months of his detention, he was held in solitary confinement and was subjected to what amounted to enforced disappearance. His family was unable to contact him, and he was denied access to legal counsel. The isolation served both to disorient the detainee and to prevent any outside scrutiny of his treatment during the initial interrogation period.

Once legal representation was finally permitted, Al-Ghamdi was allowed to meet with his lawyer only in the minutes immediately before court hearings. This severely constrained his ability to prepare a defence or to communicate the conditions of his detention.

Detention Conditions and Medical Neglect

Al-Ghamdi suffers from pre-existing neurological disorders and mental health conditions that require ongoing treatment with prescription medications. Since his arrest, the Saudi authorities have refused to provide these medications. His health has deteriorated significantly as a result of this medical neglect.

He remains detained in Al-Ha'ir Prison in Riyadh, a facility known for harsh conditions and the detention of political prisoners and individuals convicted under the Kingdom's broad counterterrorism laws.

Legal Proceedings

The case was heard by the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh, a tribunal established ostensibly for terrorism-related offences but widely used to prosecute peaceful dissent. Al-Ghamdi was charged under articles 30, 34, 43, and 44 of Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism law. The charges included "renouncing allegiance to the guardians of the state"; "supporting a terrorist ideology and a terrorist entity," specifically naming the Muslim Brotherhood; "using his accounts on Twitter and YouTube to follow and promote individuals who seek to destabilize public order"; and "sympathizing with individuals detained on terrorism-related charges."

On 24 August 2024, the SCC sentenced Al-Ghamdi to death. The court's reasoning was explicit: the crimes "targeted the status of the King and the Crown Prince," and the "magnitude of his actions is amplified by the fact they occurred through a global media platform, necessitating a strict punishment." The public prosecutor had requested the maximum penalties for all charges.

The death sentence was overturned later in August 2024 and replaced with a sentence of thirty years in prison. No further details of the appeal or commutation process have been made public. Al-Ghamdi is now expected to serve three decades behind bars for social media activity that consisted of commentary and expressions of solidarity.

International and Regional Context

Mohammed Al-Ghamdi's case is one among hundreds of similar prosecutions in Saudi Arabia since 2017, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidated power and intensified a crackdown on dissent. Teachers, clerics, academics, writers, women's rights activists, and others have been arrested and sentenced to decades in prison under the Kingdom's counterterrorism and cybercrime laws for peaceful expression online.

The SCC has become the primary instrument for these prosecutions. Its proceedings lack basic fair-trial guarantees, including the right to effective legal representation, the right to a public hearing, and protections against the use of coerced confessions. Sentences have grown progressively harsher: what once might have resulted in a few years' imprisonment now routinely produces terms of twenty, thirty, or even fifty years, effectively life sentences for many defendants.

Al-Ghamdi's case also underscores the transnational dimension of Saudi repression. By imprisoning the brothers of an exiled critic, the state sends a clear message to dissidents abroad: your family will suffer for your speech. This tactic has been applied systematically to the relatives of activists, clerics, and scholars who have sought refuge in Europe and North America.