Saudi court sentences a man to 2,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for denying the existence of God and ridiculing the Qu'ran on Twitter

A man has been sentenced to 2,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for expressing his atheist views on Twitter in Saudia Arabia.

Religious police, who monitor social networking sites, found more than 600 tweets from the 28-year-old's Twitter account which denied the existence of God and ridiculed verses in the Qu'ran.

Some of the messages also accused all prophets of lying and said their teaching fueled hostilities and wars. 

 

The man, who has not been named admitted to being an atheist when he appeared in front of a Saudi Arabian court in Riyadh.

He said the views reflected his own beliefs and he felt he had the right to express them.

As well as 2,000 lashes and 10 years in jail, the court fined him 20,000 riyals (£3,834).

Two years ago, Saudi Arabia introduced new laws which defined atheists as terrorists under the rule of the late King Abdullah.