Three Saudi YouTube social activists released
\n(AFP) \u2013 29 October, 2011<\/p>\n
RIYADH \u2014 Three Saudis detained earlier this month after posting an online video showing poverty in the oil-rich kingdom were released on Sunday, activists said.<\/p>\n
Firas Baqna, Khalid al-Rasheed and Hussam al-Darwish were arrested in Al-Sahaba district, north of Riyadh, on October 19 after their documentary was aired by the London-based opposition television Al-Islah.<\/p>\n
“We can confirm their release … two weeks after their arrest,” the activists told AFP on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The series on poverty in Saudi Arabia, first posted on YouTube, is entitled “Malub Aleina,” meaning “We are being cheated” in Arabic.<\/p>\n
Al-Islah channel is a mouthpiece for the banned Movement for Islamic Reform in Saudi Arabia, led by Saad al-Faqih.<\/p>\n
At the time of their arrest, a rights activist told AFP that the authorities suspected the three young men “were receiving finance from the channel and were taken into custody for interrogation.”<\/p>\n
One segment of the YouTube series aired on Al-Islah was filmed in Riyadh’s impoverished neighbourhoods. It featured an interview with a mosque imam claiming poverty was responsible for vice and drug abuse in his neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia, where protests are banned, has a burgeoning youth population, with more than 50 percent aged 24 or under, according to the latest Arab Human Development report, and faces a challenge in providing jobs for graduates. …source<\/a><\/p>\n