Saudi Arabia's new law would make political dissent a crime...

The Saudi authorities have drafted new anti-terrorism legislation that makes political dissent a criminal offence and would enable the government to jail anyone who questioned the integrity of the King or Crown Prince for a minimum of 10 years.

A draft copy smuggled from the kingdom and obtained by Amnesty International shows that the definition of "terrorist crimes" under the proposed new law is so broad as to enable the authorities to detain anybody for as long as they want on such wide-ranging charges as "endangering... national unity" or "harming the reputation of the state or its position".

 The Draconian draft legislation is a sign of the deep sense of threat felt by King Abdullah and the Saudi royal family because of the Arab Spring pro-democracy movement, the emergence of a Shia Iraq in the aftermath of the US invasion, and the collapse of the status quo across the Arab world. More...

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