Saudi Tweets Lead to Outrage, Death Threats

(The Wall Street Journal) - A 23-year-old Saudi columnist fled the country, his associates said, after his tweets on the human nature of the Prophet Muhammad led prominent clerics and thousands of their followers to use Twitter, YouTube, email and faxes to demand the writer's execution.

The speed, number and intensity of messages calling for the death of the writer, Hamza Kashgari, stunned many Saudis.

"Your duty is to defend our religion against those atheists and not let it pass by with no punishment -- you must write in the papers, in the internet, and write the government and not be silenced," cleric Nasser al Omar urged the public in a video posted on YouTube.

Omar appeared in the video shuddering with sobs in outrage at what he said was Kashgari's insult to the Prophet Muhammad.

One tweet offered 10,000 riyals ($2,666) to Kashgari's killer. Another posted an image of Kashgari's house taken off Google Earth. "Dead man walking!" another jeered.

The furor, kicked off by Kashgari's tweets over the weekend, sparked 30,000 tweets in one 24-hour period, according to a Saudi blogger who cited an Arabic Twitter tracker.

Saudi newspapers reported that King Abdullah ordered the arrest of Kashgari and an investigation for possible blasphemy, though the reports could not be confirmed. The Saudi information minister said via Twitter that Kashgari would be banned from writing for newspapers or magazines.

Government officials did not respond to requests for comment on Kashgari's case or his whereabouts.

Some Saudis saw the campaign as a show of strength by the country's religious conservatives, who sustained perceived rebuffs recently, including King Abdullah's appointment of a more moderate head of the religious police and a government push to get women into jobs.

"The most serious thing about this was their ability to organize," according to Abdullah Hamadaddin, an analyst based in Jeddah. "You're talking about two days, and they mobilized thousands of people."

Read more: The Wall Street Journal