Saudi Arabia’s mysterious tweeter undermining the repressive regime

AN anonymous critic is putting the repressive Arabic state under the spotlight, with more than 1.5 million reading his posts on scandal and corruption among its royals.

Abdullah

HE IS one of the fiercest critics of the Saudi Arabian government, with more than 1.5 million Twitter followers and insider information on the excesses of the country’s ruling family.

For three years he has been causing unrest in a society where censorship is rife.

But his identity is a complete mystery.

Tweeting under the name @mutjtahiid, he has exposed the truth about the royals’ land appropriations, dodgy military deals and rigged public tenders.

French Prime minister Manuel Valls (R) poses next to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud prior to their meeting at the Hotel Matignon in Paris, on September 2, 2014. AFP PHOTO/BERTRAND GUAY

His main targets are King Abdullah and his sons, but he also makes sarcastic digs at minister of defence Salman bin Abdul-Aziz and the head of the committee for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh.

His tweets expose private information including the size of mansions and details of the royals’ travel plans and health.

“I want to contribute to change in Saudi Arabia,” said @mujtahidd in an interview with Ozy via online chat.

“Exposing corruption contributes to accelerating political change. The more aware people are of what goes on, the more they will be ready to act.”

Mutjtahiid, which means “authoritative interpreter of religious law” in Arabic, admits to being an Arab male, but will give no further details.

In a country where free speech is tightly controlled and the internet firewall is one of the tightest in the world, he is taking a very serious risk.

(FILES) This file picture taken on March 1, 2003 shows Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Fahd attending the final session of the Arab summit at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The Saudi prince who fell victim to a spectacular armed raid in Paris, losing 250,000 euros in the process, was the youngest son of the former King Fahd with something of a globetrotting playboy reputation, it emerged on August 19. The 41-year-old prince was the victim of a brazen heist on the Paris ring road on August 17 night when a gang of five to eight heavily armed bandits hijacked the lead car of his 10-car convoy and drove off with three aides. AFP PHOTO / MARWAN NAAMANI

Saudi Arabia largely escaped the uprisings that spread across the Middle East during 2011’s Arab Spring.

To quell any unrest, it increased spending on social services, banned political parties and jailed or even executed political dissenters.

Even so, the regime faces increasing scrutiny over high youth unemployment, declining oil reserves and accusations of supporting terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, despite being a key ally for the US in the Middle East.

It has 2.4 million active Twitter users, the highest number in the region.

There are now questions over succession, with King Abdullah now 90 years old and the Al Saud family, which has ruled since the 18th century, having thousands of members in six, often feuding, main branches.

The profile picture on @mujtahid’s mysterious Twitter account.

The fact that the country’s leadership has not tracked down @mujtahidd and put a stop to his rebellious tweeting about its in-fighting and corruption indicates that he has supporters in high places.

His Gmail address is displayed on his Twitter account and his IP address would be easy to identify.

He says the government cannot reveal who he is because it would be “embarrassing”.

“It would be like saying that the White House’s chief of staff is a Russian spy.”

His tweets evidently have power. In 2012, he tweeted about the intelligence agency director’s incompetence — and the man lost his job.

But his prediction of a royal dispute turning violent has not yet happened.

He once tweeted Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, one of his frequent targets: “Is it true that your house in Jedda cost $1 billion but you charged $6 billion and pocketed the rest?”

The prince angrily called him a “hired tool” — but @mujtahidd insists the prince is simply one of the “best examples of corruption”.

Whether this renegade tweeter has the clout to see his dream of an accountable, transparent government fulfilled has yet to be seen.