DOHA: A liberal Saudi Arabian writer has been arrested for making comments on Twitter that the interior ministry said were insulting to Islam.
Dr Turki Alhamad was arrested on orders of Prince Mohamed bin Nayef who received “complaints” from several Islamic scholars, Al Sharq reported yesterday.
The daily said Alhamad will be investigated. His comments provoked heated debate on social networking sites in Saudi Arabia.
Alhamad attacked radical Islam in comments on his Twitter account, describing it as “a neo-Nazism which is on the rise in the Arab world.”
He said: “Our Prophet (PBUH) came to correct the religion of Ibrahim and we are living at a time when we need someone to correct the religion of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH). They deceived us by saying that it was God’s law but in the end it was only ideas,” Al Sharq quoted Alhamad as saying on his Twitter account.
“The Prophet came with a humanitarian religion but some changed it into anti-human religion…The Sun will rise,” he said.
Al Hamad’s comments provoked many, and some Islamic scholars complained to the interior minister. The minister ordered his arrest after his ministry confirmed that he had indeed made those comments.
An official of an international organization which is devoted to defending Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) has described Alhamad’s comments as insulting to Islam and praised the Saudi authorities for taking him into custody.
THE PENINSULA
