Saudi Arabia in November sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to death for "spreading atheism and disrespecting the prophet." An unnamed Twitter user said the sentence was "ISIS-like."
— ist and phobic (@ist_and_phobic) November 27, 2015
A government official was quoted by the government-aligned Al Riyadh newspaper as saying "The justice ministry will sue the person who described … the sentencing of a man to death for apostasy as being 'ISIS-like,'" Reuters reports.
Twitter users defiantly responded with the hashtags #SueMeSaudi and #SaudiArabiaIsISIS.
— Jens Nero (@NeroJens) December 1, 2015
— Dan Boyle (@sendboyle) November 29, 2015
— Gizzy (@dragyntales) November 28, 2015
One user retweeted a graphic created by the online news portal MiddleEastEye.net that compares the crime-and-punishment policies of Saudi Arabia with those of Daesh.
— R Mahajan (@mahajanomics) November 29, 2015
Others are sharing a political cartoon by Peter Brookes which shows the similarities in capital punishment carried out by Daesh and Saudi Arabia.
— Peter Brookes (@BrookesTimes) November 28, 2015
Saudi Arabia's justice system is based on Islamic Sharia law, and its judges are clerics from the kingdom's ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam.
Fayadh's conviction could result in his beheading. Saudi Arabia has executed more than 150 people in 2015, the most in decades.