Saudi Government Sentences U.S. Citizen to 16 Years in Prison for Anti-Regime Tweets Posted from U.S.

Axios (Shawna Chen) reports, as does an opinion piece in the Washington Post (Josh Rogin) (paywalled). From the Post:

[L]ast November, when [American citizen Saad Ibrahim Almadi] traveled to Riyadh to visit family, he was detained regarding 14 tweets posted on his account over the previous seven years. One of the cited tweets referenced Jamal Khashoggi, the Post contributing columnist who was murdered by Saudi agents in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Other tweets criticized the Saudi government's policies and the corruption in the Saudi system.

And from Axios:

The State Department confirmed Tuesday that … Almadi remains imprisoned in Saudi Arabia after he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for posting tweets critical of the Saudi government….

Almadi was charged with harboring a terrorist ideology, trying to destabilize the kingdom, as well as supporting and funding terrorism. He was also charged with failing to report terrorism, a charge related to tweets Ibrahim sent on a separate account.

The Guardian (Stephanie Kirchgaessner) adds:

[Almadi's son] expressed intense frustration with the US government's handling of his father's case. After months of maintaining his silence – he claims at the US government's behest – he accused the US of poorly managing the crisis. The US government has also not designated Almadi's case as involving an American being "wrongfully detained", a designation that would give the case a higher priority within the US bureaucracy.

Comments

[Jerry B.]

Not White, and not a Black WNBA star. He’s out of luck.

[CJColucci]

I have no idea what the State Department is doing about this, though I have trouble thinking they're not trying to do something. If it's doing something, it would normally do it quietly. When someone is famous, we hear about it, and it probably makes things difficult.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I have zero problem thinking the State Department's only activity is trying to shut down publicity that damages the Saudi's reputations. Biden sucked up to them a few months ago, denied it, and has been begging them for more oil while shutting down US oil production. With so much hypocrisy already in play, it is easier to believe in more of it rather than less.

[Krayt]

That was what Trump did, ironically, about the actual murder this person was merely complaining about. Seeking to minimize it as an effect.

[nobody 2]

The nerve of those Saudis, imposing their laws on a foreigner for something he did in another country. Who do they think they are, Americans?

[M L]

I'm wondering what the U.S. government is doing with James Gordon Meek.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Renditioning him to the Saudis?

[Martinned]

A version of this came up in a comments section a while ago, where people seemed to have a surprising amount of difficulty understanding that foreign law might regulate what they post on the internet from the US. At the time I used British contempt law as an example, but it works the same here.

Now I get that there are sound electoral reasons why the US government takes the view that Americans should generally be exempt from foreign laws (see also: US "diplomat"'s wife Anne Sacoolas causing a fatal car accident in the UK in 2019), but if you look at the issue dispassionately, this is actually quite a difficult line-drawing exercise. Here is a useful post explaining how the State Department decides which Americans in foreign prisons should stay there or not: http://opiniojuris.org/2022/10/04/who-gets-to-say-who-is-wrongfully-detained-the-muddy-contours-of-hostage-diplomacy/

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The diplomat's wife was in the UK when she broke a UK law.

This guy was a US citizen in the US and did not break a US law.

By your reasoning, any alcohol he drank in the US would also be reasonable ground for being arrested in Saudi Arabia.

[Toranth]

The guy is also a Saudi citizen, and was arrested in Saudi Arabia, for having broken a Saudi law (supposedly).

This is a great example of why censorship laws are evil, but it is not a case of a government abusing foreigners.

[Martinned]

He was in the US when he published something in Saudi-Arabia. Since part of his "crime" took place in Saudi-Arabia, it does not offend international comity for him to be prosecuted in Saudi-Arabia.

(Though, because some idiot is bound to deliberately misconstrue my comments, it certainly offends a whole lot of other things.)

Since the internet is (nearly) global, anything you publish on the internet you publish in almost every country in the world simultaneously, and each country gets to have its own laws to govern that. I'd be the first to agree that it would be good to agree some kind of international treaty to regulate which states get to have an opinion about things said and done on the internet in which circumstances, but given how the US has been about international treaties lately I'm not holding my breath.

[Publius_2020]

This highlights why "speech crimes" pose a very different set of issues from traditional property and bodily interest crimes. Traditional notions of the limits of sovereignty generally restrict assaults and other bodily interest crimes to the territory in which the action is performed. You therefore know whether you are going to be subject to the law of the forum. Property crimes are similar; it's possible to act unlawfully against property from afar, but you generally are on notice as to where the property lies, so you can presume that you'll be subject to the law of that forum.

But speech crimes are different. As you note, public speech is public everywhere. And speech crimes (in some places) purport to cover things as nebulous as "giving offense." So you could be subject to the law of any forum in the world on the charge of "giving offense" through your speech. That's intensely dangerous.

Your suggestion of international treaty (similar to the Vienna Convention with respect to diplomats) isn't a bad idea, but it suffers from the serious problem that the worst offenders are almost certainly not going to sign the treaty. I'm not sure that there's any better advice here than "don't go there."

[Martinned]

Traditional notions of the limits of sovereignty generally restrict assaults and other bodily interest crimes to the territory in which the action is performed.

If I recall law school correctly, national laws on jurisdiction typically base jurisdiction on one of two grounds:
- Where the last overt act by the tortfeasor occurred
- Where the elements of the tort occurred. Since publication is an essential element of the tort of defamation, this logically includes everywhere where the allegedly defamatory content is published.

The US way of doing jurisdiction is not the only way.

Also, this is not just about crimes, but also about civil suits, including defamation. This has been a problem for years, to the point where the UK has been stepping in to avoid their courts being used as global litigation centres for defamation suits.

[Bored Lawyer]

It's a sad state of affairs. What it needs is the freedom-loving countries to become aggressive about free-speech. Fat chance.

[wnoise]

> He was in the US when he published something in Saudi-Arabia

Did he publish something in Saudi Arabia? Or did a large set of cooperating entities cause something he published in the US to be viewable in Saudi Arabia? There's a whole lot of "but-fors" between him hitting post and "publishing".

[Krayt]

By your reasoning, any alcohol he drank in the US would also be reasonable ground for being arrested in Saudi Arabia.

19 year olds in Michigan would go to Windsor to drink. Some years back some killjoy decided to check them for being drunk on their way back.

The law is no underage drinking in Michigan, not anywhere on the planet.

Watch out, women coming back to your state having had an abortion! :rollseyes

[Bored Lawyer]

No, because drinking alcohol in the US has no connection to Saudi Arabia, whereas publishing something on the internet publishes it to the whole world, including Saudi Arabia. And if the content concerns the government of Saudi Arabia, it is directed to Saudi Arabia.

Which totally sucks, but that is the law. It allows dictators to squelch dissent from abroad, especially ex-pats, who are most likely to have an interest in and knowledge of their home country.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

whereas publishing something on the internet publishes it to the whole world, including Saudi Arabia.

If you publish a book in the U.S. and people in Saudi Arabia are able to remotely purchase that book via some vendor that delivers internationally, did you publish it in Saudi Arabia?

[Bored Lawyer]

If you know your publisher intends to publish in the foreign country, then yes. Publication contracts usually specify where the publisher may or may not publish the work. If your contract says, "We the Publisher are licensed to publish anywhere in the Middle East," it's hard to say you did not intend to publish it there.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

If you know your publisher intends to publish in the foreign country, then yes.

What I’m getting at here is what exactly it means to “publish” something, especially when that word is being used to describe such disparate things as printing and selling books vs serving up web content. What exactly constitutes the act of “publishing”? Is Amazon also “publishing” a book that it sells for another publishing house who already published it in the U.S.?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

As an example:

Acme Publishing prints n copies of a book and sells some of them directly via brick and mortar stores in the U.S. Realizing that they could sell even more by letting a large online retailer do some selling they contract with that retailer. Does that arrangement constitute a 2nd act of publishing? Or is it the actual sale transaction and delivery to consumers that constitute a 2nd act of "publishing"? Or are we looking at three separate publishing actions in this case?

[Bored Lawyer]

Publishing has a special meaning in each of defamation law and copyright law. But neither are relevant here, as in theory selling or distributing certain materials can create criminal or civil liability. In Germany, it is a crime to distribute Nazi materials; whether it is a publication or not is not really the issue.

Online sales can be targeted to certain countries or limited to certain countries. Amazon, for example, has country by country listing. I can list something for sale in the US but not Europe or the MIddle East. Same for websites -- they often say where they will or will not ship to.
I once had a case where the seller of counterfeit goods offered them on a website which stated "We ship anywhere in the continental U.S." I successfully argued that subjected the seller to jurisdiciton anywhere in the country.
So in terms of book sales, there very much is an intentional effort by someone (not necessarily the author) to disseminate them in particular countries.
The harder issue is posting information or articles to a website, blog or social media, which can be viewed around the world. If I post here that "Putin is a Weenie," should that give Russia a basis to extradite me and charge me with sedition? Does it matter who my intended audience is? Or whether I am a Russian citizen or not?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The harder issue is posting information or articles to a website, blog or social media, which can be viewed around the world. If I post here that “Putin is a Weenie,” should that give Russia a basis to extradite me and charge me with sedition? Does it matter who my intended audience is? Or whether I am a Russian citizen or not?

And maybe this is what I'm really trying to drive at...especially when it comes to this part of the comment by Martinned that created this sub-thread:

He was in the US when he published something in Saudi-Arabia. Since part of his “crime” took place in Saudi-Arabia

Did he publish something "in" SA? He "published" something, while in the U.S., to a website that is hosted in the U.S. So the action taken by the author took place entirely within the U.S. Does the fact that the information served up by that website can be accessed remotely from computers in SA mean that the crime took place "in Saudi-Arabia"?

[Martinned]

Publication isn't publication until someone other than the author sees it. So publication occurs wherever someone other than the author reads the material.

[Kazinski]

I wonder if all the facts are present here.

If Saad Ibrahim Almadi has dual citizenship in Saudi Arabia and did not repudiate his Saudi citizenship when he became a US citizen then by international law he is fully subject to Saudi law and the US government is nothing more than a bystander.

Of course if he did repudiate his citizenship then he is being detained illegally.

[Voize]

Of course if he did repudiate his citizenship then he is being detained illegally.

Unless that statement is based on Saudi law it is hard to see how it could affect this situation.
Extraterritoriality is a growing concern in an increasingly global world. You may have read about Lafarge Cement, a French company, being fined in the name of anti-terrorism by the US for actions taken in Syria that have no direct US connection. Lafarge will pay because there is no supranational judicial body that can stop the US courts from doing what Congress authorizes them to do.
In the present case the Saudis claim to also be enforcing an anti-terrorism law, because they designate opposition to the regime as terrorism. Almadi doesn't have legal recourse any more than Lafarge did, because again there is no supranational body to override the Saudi law that authorizes the actions the Saudi courts have taken.

[apedad]

(Note to self: Don't go to Saudi Arabia.)

[Ed Grinberg]

note to self: Don't let U.S. become Saudi Arabia.
Fuck Joe Biden!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I'm always amazed how many people casually travel to police states, of their own free will, and then are shocked to find they're in a police state. There a long list of countries I'd never enter outside of an emergency.

[Krayt]

It's their home country. They have family and friends there. They care for its success and wish well for increasing freedoms there.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, sure, but as their home country, which they'd voluntarily left, they knew better than anyone that it wasn't a free country.

[rloquitur]

The Saudis don't care about Biden. They care about Iran and the restive Shia minority and Yemen.

And no one is stopping arms sales to the Saudis.