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Saudi Arabia appears determined to sacrifice one of its young on the altar of domestic politics. At the center of a brewing storm is Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old journalist who faces charges of apostasy and a potential death sentence for posting controversial views of the Prophet Muhammad on Twitter in early February. In three short messages, in which he expressed a mix of devotion, frustration and uncertainty about his faith, Kashgari has stirred rancor across Arabia. His greatest affront, it seems, was giving voice to doubt. Many in Saudi Arabia share his views, but it is a poisonous environment for those who harbor uncertainty. In a place that demands public conformity to a narrow interpretation of Islamic orthodoxy and servility to religion’s gatekeepers, Kashgari said too much.

Tens of thousands of self-righteous Saudis responded venomously, including the country’s king, who allegedly personally ordered Kashgari’s detention. Amid calls for his death, a desperate and frightened Kashgari tried and failed to flee. An escape to New Zealand, where he hoped to press for political asylum, was interrupted after authorities in Malaysia deported him back to Saudi Arabia. Should Kashgari face formal criminal charges of apostasy, prosecutors will argue that he blasphemed Islam’s most important figure. It is an accusation fraught with peril. Angry clerics serve as gatekeepers of the law and, more important, as dispensers of cruelty masked as justice.

While the most vituperative responses to the Kashgari affair are no doubt rooted in zealous conviction, the reality is that this episode, and particularly the government’s support for the case against him, has little to do with protecting the sanctity of Islam. Rather, the Saudi regime is playing a calculated political game, one that aims to oppress some critics, to outmaneuver others and to bolster its thin claims to religious legitimacy.

While his postings on Muhammad suggest contemplative self-reflection, Kashgari subsequently confided that he was aware not only of the potential risk but that by courting controversy he was deliberately testing the limits of his freedom. Before his deportation, he described his actions as practicing “the most basic human rights—freedom of expression and thought…there are a lot of people like me in Saudi Arabia who are fighting for their rights.”

Kashgari was hardly a revolutionary, but his views most certainly were. The kingdom’s government is intolerant of free speech, especially anything that challenges political authority. Dissenting religious and political views, including those expressed by Kashgari, are widely shared inside the kingdom. Among the droves of death threats and the cries of angry critics, Kashgari also commands a sympathetic following. Thousands have rallied in his support. And the regime in Riyadh is well aware, particularly in an era of revolutionary upheaval, that a significant number of its subjects bristle against its authority. Such sentiment is hard to quantify, and criticism is only safely asserted anonymously. But the critics are there, most notably in the new social media. And they have potential power, which the regime grudgingly understands.

But while Twitter and Facebook have opened avenues for dissent, there are still significant dangers, something the Kashgari affair makes painfully clear. The regime is notorious for filling its prisons with political activists. In November the kingdom sentenced seventeen activists to long prison terms for daring to demand greater human and political rights. And there are other pressures at work that inhibit any public mobilization in support of Kashgari or against the regime. Many who have called for his death demand exactly the same for the thousands who support him. Given the power accorded by the regime to extremists, it is enough to shock most into reticence. Ultimately Kashgari proved vulnerable not because he is alone but because the regime has rendered the price of dissent unbearable. By arresting and threatening him under the cloak of Islamic law, the regime has also sent a clear message to others like him.

Kashgari’s persecution also marks an effort by Saudi Arabia’s leaders to shore up support from within the halls of religious authority. The royal family has long leaned on the country’s senior clerics to stamp its temporal power with the imprimatur of religious legitimacy. But many in the kingdom see through the claim. Pious and agnostic alike consider the royal family corrupt and irreverent. It is commonly held that Riyadh’s assertion of Islamic authority is spurious, a fiction that the government peddles as an excuse to protect its personal fortunes and power. Whether genuine or not, the result has been the empowerment of a class of religious scholars who are committed to protecting their own authority.

The Saudi-scholar alliance has proven a devil’s bargain at times. Over the past three decades these frustrations have generated significant challenges to the regime, with outspoken clerics periodically targeting the government for its infidelities. Mindful of this, the kingdom’s leaders regularly seek opportunities to placate potential critics in the mosques. In doing so, they have assured the rise of a clerical class that is simultaneously a pillar of support and a potential threat. An unfortunate consequence of this arrangement has been the de facto encouragement of extreme figures at the expense of more reasoned voices.

As the drama surrounding Kashgari unfolded Nasser al-Omar, a particularly odious scholar with a history of calumny, emerged as the leading figure in his public persecution. Al-Omar’s radical credentials are considerable. In the 1990s he was an advocate of an especially shrill anti-Shiite sectarianism, a sentiment that is deeply entrenched in Saudi society today. More important, he is part of a generation of scholars that has openly questioned the fitness of the Al Saud to rule. In a video commentary that quickly went viral, al-Omar broke down in tears as he called for Kashgari’s execution. Al-Omar tapped into widespread sentiment, but his visibility and the government’s accommodation of figures like him speaks directly to both the cravenness of the government’s agenda as well as royal anxiety about the potential for the clergy to rally against the crown.

Hamza Kashgari, then, is a sacrifice the royal family is not just willing to make, but that its continued power depends on. In the torrent of invective and recrimination that has swept through Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, the country’s rulers no doubt find comfort in pitting its citizens against one another. Better to encourage culture wars than allow critics to direct their ire toward the seat of power.

23 year-old journalist Hamza Kashghari became a celebrity against his will since February 4^th after three controversial tweets he wrote on the occasion of Prophet Mohammad’s birthday. He imagined a conversation between himself and the Prophet, talking on equal footing. This directly triggered angry reactions: 30,000 angry tweets in 24 hours threatening him, a Facebook page “Saudi people want punishment for Hamza Kashgari” (which gathered 14,000 members) and many YouTube videos. Some even posted his home address online. A weeping Saudi cleric, Nasser al-Omar, called for Kasghari’s trial in a video that went viral. Some even offered up 110,000 Saudi Riyals (almost $30,000) for his head. The journalist issued a long apology and deleted the tweets, but to no avail.

Fearing for his life, the journalist fled for Malaysia, planning to ask for political asylum in New Zealand. He was arrested in Kuala Lampur airport and deported back to his country on the 12th. His family, friends and supporters fear for his life, since apostasy could be punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. His case was brought up to light worldwide these past few days, and Hamza is considered as prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

This text was sent by one of Hamza’s friends to Mashallah News.

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The first time I came across the name Hamza Kashgari was around three years ago, in the title of a Facebook group urging him to repent for one of his written opinions. I don’t recall any of the details.

I then began seeing his comments on friends’ pages, and I sent him a friend request.  Once he accepted I began to get to know him better. Hamza was and still is a noble gentleman. “Taking the side of minorities, the marginalized, and supporting the revolutions,” as he described himself on twitter. I knew he was a man of principle, someone who never contradicted himself or supported ideas and beliefs merely for personal gain.

Hamza was and still is independent, never blindly supporting one side or taking a position without familiarity with the subject.

I first met Hamza at the Riyadh Book Fair in 2011. He was at times bantering with the vendors while at other times arguing with them, yet always smiling.

I later got to know him better at Bridges Bookstore in Jeddah. He was a pillar of the store, which served a meeting and reference point for Hamza and his friends. The religious police even raided the bookstore and began a determined effort to try to dismantle this civil institution. The youth caused concern for some people there, discussing and reading about everything: religion, politics, revolutions, corruption, Jeddah’s disasters, philosophy, literature, painting, and even singing.

To me, Hamza was the thin and handsome young man who was always very shy. I envied the remnants of his childhood that he carried on his shoulders. He was youthful in a way you couldn’t image and likewise a mature intellectual, a revolutionary fighter.  At the same time, his quill wrote about love, beauty, art, and humanity. He was a vibrant blend that couldn’t be absorbed without knowing the goodness of his heart and the purity of his soul, things that didn’t require much time to discover.

My relationship with Hamza wasn’t particularly close. I met him no more than ten times. In our encounters I would comment on a sentence he wrote or express my admiration for it, whereas he would then marvel at “The Position of the Sand” a poem by Muhammad al-Thubaiti hanging on my wall.

But with this, I firmly believe that he is much more honourable and noble than those who attacked him. I can also say for sure that the Hamza I know, based on his actions and behaviour, was a firm believer, or even the most steadfast of believers, relative to the behaviour and actions of those who attacked him.

The Hamza I know has not and would never get angry about an idea, principle, or something sacred. He reserves his anger for political matters or personal interests. The Hamza I know would never be obscene or vulgar simply because he disagreed with one’s ideas or opinions. Hamza would never lash out at anyone for his or her ideas. Hamza never called for the use of violence—any violence—against those with whom he disagreed.

The Hamza I know will never exclude violators.

The Hamza I know wrote an article about political prisoners in al-Balad Newspaper, which as far as I know is the only such article that has been published in the Saudi press. He wrote this article despite the fact that he didn’t share many of the beliefs of those imprisoned.

The Hamza I know was at Nawras Circle last Sunday, just two or three hours before the uproar and hashtags began, participating in a sit-in for the sake of the Syrian Revolution. He was demanding the expulsion of the Syrian Ambassador. During this protest he was briefly detained, gave a statement and afterwards released.

The Hamza I know knows the Holy Prophet, including his life stories and morals, more than the majority of the frenzied herd that has been attacking him.

Thank you, Hamza, for you have exposed the hypocrisy of many of those who call for rights and freedom, those who loudly support an impartial struggle for truth and objectivity. One such person who condemned Hamza is a well-known media figure who multiple sources claim to be an atheist.  I would never oppose his freedom of speech, but I despise his position as though he were a radical Salafist sheikh. However, for this person his individual desires come before any principles or beliefs.

May God be with Hamza, who made me laugh when he said, “Thank God for blessing us with Abdul Aziz bin Fahd, just as the Egyptians were blessed with Tawfiq Akasha.”

May God be with Hamza, who hurt me when I heard what he said. It is humiliating to say something you don’t believe in just to save your life.

May God be with Hamza, who taught me expressions of longing and infatuation that found a way to escape from his heart to his wall.

May God be with the idea of Hamza, which they thought they could remove from existence by cutting off his head or suffocating him.  They didn’t know that an idea, like a cloud, is immune to arrest or detention, only encountering other similar ideas.

God be with Hamza, who You know, and who knows You more than any other person.

Written by Omar al-Tamimi.

Translation and editing: Tyler Huffman and Karl Rihan.