The Saudi government has sentenced educator and cartoonist Mohammed al-Ghamdi to 23 years in prison. Mohammed, who drew under the pen name Al-Hazza, was originally arrested in 2018 for allegedly insulting Saudi Arabia but his case was re-opened resulting in a harsher sentence that cannot be appealed.
Mohammed, a Saudi citizen, briefly drew cartoons for the Qatari newspaper Lusail during a diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, and Qatar that began in 2017. According to the Sanad Human Rights Organization, a Saudi political and civil rights group, he was arrested in 2018 for allegedly expressing sympathy for Qatar, producing insulting drawings, and posting on social media that Qatar did not deserve the diplomatic break with Saudi Arabia.