Best & Worst of CPAC's Free Speech Ratings: Saudi Arabia

The inaugural CPAC Freedom of Speech Ratings assessed 31 nations, placing Saudi Arabia at the absolute bottom with a 0% score. This failing grade highlights a landscape where the state exerts total control over the voice of its people, treating any deviation from the official narrative as a threat to national security.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy where the legal system is based on a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, leaving no room for secular or dissenting viewpoints. Under the rule of King Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, their government has intensified its crackdown on all forms of dissent through a series of repressive policies. The 2007 Anti-Cybercrime Law, particularly Article 6, is frequently used to imprison individuals for social media posts that are deemed to infringe on public order or religious values. Additionally, the 2017 Counterterrorism Law defines terrorism so broadly that it encompasses any peaceful criticism of the government or the ruling family. These laws are enforced by the Specialized Criminal Court, which was originally established to prosecute violent extremists but is now routinely used to silence human rights defenders, journalists, and anyone who dares to question the state's religious or political orthodoxy.

The case of Ahmad al-Shammari serves as a chilling testament to the lethal consequences of this repression in Saudi Arabia. Ahmad al-Shammari is a Saudi Arabian dissident who is currently in prison and is facing the death penalty for so-called apostasy and blasphemy. He was first prosecuted in 2014 after he allegedly renounced Islam on social media when he was only 18 years old. At his trial in 2015, al-Shammari pleaded insanity and claimed that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol when he made the social media posts in question, but the court rejected his defense. He was convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death, a ruling that has been upheld through multiple appeals. His continued imprisonment and the threat of execution highlight a system where a single social media post can lead to a state-sanctioned death sentence.

Ahmad al-Shammari’s case is a stark reminder of the extreme measures the Saudi government will take to silence those who deviate from its rigid ideology. Because of Saudi Arabia's treatment of dissidents like al-Shammari and its systematic criminalization of peaceful expression, it received the lowest possible score in CPAC's Freedom of Speech Ratings.

Read the full brief here.

Not every case of imprisonment for speech gets widespread media attention. If you are aware of a case in which a person was imprisoned for speech and received a harsher sentence than the political prisoner whom we feature in the scorecard, please send the details of the case to slaird2@conservative.org. To meet our methodological criteria, the person must be 1) imprisoned or sentenced to prison for speech that would have been protected under the US first amendment, 2) a citizen of the country in which they are imprisoned, 3) received a sentence of imprisonment for at least one month OR were imprisoned without being sentenced for at least 3 months 4) not imprisoned for any actual crime during the same period for which they were sentenced for a speech crime.

CPAC vehemently opposes the views of many of the political prisoners featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings. Political prisoners are featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings for the purpose of revealing the state of legal Freedom of Speech protection in their countries. Political prisoners are selected based on the objective facts of their cases; each selected prisoner is the person who received the harshest sentence in that country for speech that would have been protected by the US First Amendment. CPAC stands for the right to Freedom of Speech for everyone, even people whose views we vehemently oppose.