eye__ball

Hi Roula. Thanks for doing this AMA.

I'm from (and live) in the Gulf region - not KSA. The reaction to Jamal's killing around us is twofold: in public spaces such as Twitter (which is quite popular around here, as I'm sure you know), people are standing with KSA and rallying around MBS. In private, between close friends and relatives, I find that people are generally horrified.

This sort of split is very common with Arabs, generally because of our lack of free speech platforms.

My question is this: what will it take for us Arabs (especially the comfortable ones in the GCC) to finally come together and publically stand up to these horrific acts and condemn these actions from our leaders? (e.g. the war in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, the list goes on.)

Many people look at Syria, Libya, Yemen and conclude that the alternative to current regimes is chaos.

I completely agree. In fact, where I live, it is an explicit crime (up to five years in prison) for any citizen to criticise the Kingdom in any way online. I suppose we're stuck in this limbo for the foreseeable future (or until the oil price drops to $10 a barrel).

Thanks for your time, and keep up the good work.

Honestly, those who have been imprisoned were pretty explicit in their Tweets or remarks. There are plenty of examples of bloggers and lawmakers here who face these charges.

But do you want to know what the really interesting part of all this is? A lot of criminals in the country (keep in mind violent crime is incredibly low here), such as those with manslaughter charges and the like, have their sentences drastically reduced. However, those with charges such as insulting other GCC countries never get that lenience because these are considered threats to the 'stability and security' of the state.

In short, if you kill someone by accident, you're much more likely to get off than by Tweeting something deemed illegal.

To be honest, I'm not sure. But I can tell you that in the smaller Gulf states, this would be much more difficult to accomplish since there are much fewer degrees of separation between people.

Another thing to consider is that people in the Gulf states are usually placated with money and positions of power rather than force.