Last year, Saudi teacher Asaad al-Ghamdi was given 20 years in prison for criticising the government online — one of a wave of heavy sentences that drew international condemnation.Last month he was unexpectedly released, joining dozens of political prisoners to be freed as the authorities seek to improve their image overseas. According to an AFP tally, more than 30 dissidents, many jailed for social media posts, have been released since December, in an apparent rollback of “bad laws” singled out by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.”Some judges think they’re pleasing the government by issuing 30-year prison sentences for a tweet,” one source close to the government told AFP.”The crown prince did not ask for that and he is not pleased with it.”Even fringe figures with small online followings have been handed multi-decade sentences by Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court, which handles terrorism cases.While there are signs of an apparent shift, many dissidents remain behind bars. Analysts have said recent releases are likely part of a bid by Saudi rulers to soften their image abroad, rather than of any systemic reform. Among those swept up in the crackdown was Salma al-Shehab, a University of Leeds PhD student and mother of two, who received a 34-year term in 2022 before it was commuted to four years in 2024.Shehab, who had posted in support of women’s rights to her 2,600 followers on X, then Twitter, was released last month after serving the reduced term.Mother-of-five Nourah al-Qahtani, whose anonymous X account had fewer than 600 followers, saw an initial six-and-a-half-year sentence jump to 45 years on appeal in 2022.Fitness blogger Manahel al-Otaibi received an 11-year sentence in January 2024 for, according to rights groups, challenging male guardianship laws and requirements for women to wear the body-shrouding abaya robe.- Royal shame -The draconian punishments jarred with efforts to repackage ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, as a business and tourism hub.But the tide appeared to turn after Ghamdi’s brother Mohammed, a retired teacher who had criticised the government online, received the death sentence in 2023.Prince Mohammed later told Fox News he was “ashamed” and “not happy” about the case, saying Saudi Arabia was working to change certain “bad laws”.That year, Prince Mohammed set up a committee to review political cases, some of whom were dealt “severe injustice”, said the source.Last August, Mohammed al-Ghamdi’s death sentence was overturned on appeal, although he was sentenced to 30 years jail the following month.Among recent releases was rights defender Mohammed al-Qahtani who was freed in January, more than two years after his 10-year sentence expired.Also freed were university student Malik al-Ahmed and preacher Mohammed al-Habdan, both arrested during a widespread round-up in September 2017.”What we’re seeing now is the result of this committee’s ongoing work to ensure justice,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.- Khashoggi killing -Saudi Arabia achieved worldwide notoriety after the murder and dismemberment of US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a government critic, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.A UN probe accused Saudi Arabia of organising the killing, and US intelligence agencies alleged that Prince Mohammed approved the operation. Riyadh denied the accusation and blamed rogue operatives.The furore eventually faded and Saudi Arabia has since hosted several Western leaders.Umar Karim, a Saudi expert at Britain’s University of Birmingham, said conditions are “ripe for sending a positive gesture to Saudi dissidents outside the kingdom” now that Prince Mohammed and his father King Salman, crowned in 2015, have consolidated their power.”As the kingdom is emerging as a critical player in global politics… improving its reputation in the human rights domain seems to be a pertinent strategy.”After repairing relations with Iran and hosting US-Russia and US-Ukraine talks, prisoner releases “generate further goodwill”, Karim said.But many critics remain behind bars, including prominent clerics Salman al-Awdah and Awad al-Qarni, both detained in 2017.Awdah’s son Abdullah Alaoudh, who heads the Washington-based Middle East Democracy Center, welcomed the releases, saying he hoped Riyadh would end “arbitrary detention and the arrest of prisoners of conscience once and for all”.In a televised interview this month, state security chief Abdul Aziz bin Mohammed Al-Howairini assured exiled dissidents they could return “without punishment”.But cleric Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, the brother of Asaad and Mohammed, who lives in self-imposed exile in London, said a total overhaul was needed before critics could return.The absolute monarchy does not tolerate political opposition, has no elected parliament and judges are appointed by royal decree.Saudi Arabia needs “comprehensive reforms… including political participation, judicial independence and general freedoms without exception”, Ghamdi said.”Otherwise any steps would remain superficial.”

For the volunteer watchers scanning southern Israel’s wheatfields, protecting migratory falcons from poachers is a highly coordinated security operation.The raptors may top the food chain in the wild, but here the predators can themselves become the prey.Many protected species of migratory birds spend their winters in this agricultural area close to the Gaza Strip.And some species are big business. A single falcon can fetch up to tens of thousands of dollars on the black market, especially in Gulf countries where falconry is a treasured tradition.Meidad Goren, director of the Ramat Hanegev Birding Center, told AFP that poaching has soared in recent years.Falcons are captured alive by Bedouin Arabs living in Israel’s Negev desert to be domesticated or smuggled to neighbouring countries, he said.Using binoculars to observe one bird perched on a nearby pylon, Goren noted: “It has a ring. It’s a peregrine falcon that was captured and escaped.”The raptors feed on small birds attracted to the wheat, waiting motionless and watching from power lines that cross the fields.The number of cases of birds of prey, especially falcons, found with ties around their legs, sometimes tangled in power lines, led Goren to set up groups of volunteer watchers.The area is also patrolled by rangers from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.- ‘Like watching a child’ -This winter, a saker falcon took up residence around Kibbutz Urim.The saker falcon is an endangered species popular with falconers in eastern Europe, Central Asia and Arab states. After observing several attempts by poachers to capture the bird, Goren put in place what he calls a “special surveillance system”.”Dozens of people, ornithologists, nature lovers, retirees, guides, farmers,” responded to his appeal for help to reinforce regular volunteer patrols, said Goren. His centre operates under both the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.Mirit Keshales is 47 and a regular “falcon guardian” volunteer. “It’s really like watching a child, a very methodical organisation with a well-defined schedule… we make sure someone is always there during the day,” she said.The poachers come mostly from Bedouin villages, said Ofir Bruckenstein, a ranger with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.”For them, hunting with falcons and owning falcons are cultural practices rooted in their traditions,” he said.”Owning a falcon and displaying it in their living space is a symbol of status and prestige.”- Sold for $19,000 -Bruckenstein criticised what he called lenient penalties for poaching, in particular of falcons, saying fines were of “a few thousand shekels”, even if repeat offenders faced jail terms. The especially lucrative black market for falcons smuggled via Jordan and Egypt to the Gulf encourages the illegal trade, he added.”Saker falcons and peregrine falcons are easily sold for 50,000 or 70,000 shekels ($14,000 to $19,000),” he said.Falconry is inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and is hugely popular in the Gulf.In the United Arab Emirates, passports for falcons were introduced in 2002 in an effort to combat smuggling, and tens of thousands have since been issued.But poaching remains a regional problem in the Middle East, and the demand for falcons captured from the wild has exploded in recent years, with the growth in clubs which stage contests for beauty and falconry.While falcons are farmed, especially in the UAE which permits only captive-bred and registered birds to be used in sport falconry, wild falcons are considered better hunters and are thus more desirable.”They lack falcons because those that arrive (in the Gulf region) in winter have nearly all been caught. That’s why they are now trying to capture them elsewhere,” said Goren.AFP contacted several international falconry organisations based in Europe, but they declined to comment on the illegal trade to Gulf countries, citing the “sensitivity of the issue”.Meanwhile, the watchers in southern Israel do what they can to prevent more of these beautiful birds from falling into human hands.

Israel’s military on Thursday expanded ground operations across Gaza, after it reported missiles intercepted from Yemen and Hamas militants said they fired rockets towards Tel Aviv.The rocket fire from Hamas was its first military response to the growing civilian death toll from Israel’s resumption of aerial bombardment and ground operations in Gaza this week.The offensive has drawn widespread condemnation and shattered a relative calm in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory where a ceasefire began on January 19. Talks on extending the truce reached an impasse, and Israel resumed intensive bombing of Gaza on Tuesday.Early Friday, the head of Shin Bet — Israel’s domestic intelligence agency — was sacked, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the conflict.Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Ronen Bar, who joined the agency in 1993.Late Thursday the military said troops had begun “conducting ground activity” in the Shabura area of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city near the Egyptian border.”As part of the activity, the troops dismantled… terrorist infrastructure,” the military said in a statement, adding that “troops are continuing ground activity in northern and central Gaza.”Israel earlier said it had closed off the territory’s main north-south route as part of expanding ground operations that resumed on Wednesday.Gaza’s civil defence agency said 504 people had been killed since Tuesday, including more than 190 under the age of 18.The toll is among the highest since the war started more than 17 months ago with Hamas’s attack on Israel.The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said it fired rockets at Israel’s commercial centre in response to “massacres” of Gaza civilians.The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, claimed by Iran-backed Huthi rebels who say they act in support of the Palestinians, for the second time within a day.US President Donald Trump “fully supports” Israel’s renewed Gaza operations, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters when asked if he was trying to get a Gaza ceasefire back on track.Israel’s military said an air strike had “in recent days” killed Rashid Jahjouh, the head of Hamas’s internal security agency.In Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, Alaa Abu Nasr said 17 members of his family were killed in an air strike.”They are targeting civilians, not fighters,” he said among the rubble.- Fleeing south -Military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X that Israeli troops “have begun a targeted ground operation in the central and southern Gaza Strip in order to expand the security zone between the northern and southern parts”.Movement along Salaheddin Road between northern and southern Gaza is prohibited “for your safety”, he said.Palestinians were seen fleeing south along a section of Salaheddin Road still open, near central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, atop donkey-drawn carts piled high with belongings.In Gaza’s south, the army warned people to evacuate Bani Suheila before a strike on militants “firing rockets from populated areas”.Government spokesman David Mencer said Israel controlled central and southern Gaza and was “expanding the security zone” and creating a buffer between the north and south.An official from Gaza’s interior ministry said the Israeli army had closed what it calls Netzarim Junction, just south of Gaza City on Salaheddin Road.The official said Israeli tanks had deployed at the junction after the withdrawal of American private security contractors stationed there since the pullback of Israeli forces in February, under the ceasefire.The first stage of the ceasefire, under which Israeli hostages held by Hamas were exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, expired early this month.Israel rejected negotiations for a second stage, demanding the return of all remaining hostages under an extended first stage. Hamas insisted on engaging in talks for phase two.Under the agreed truce deal, as outlined by then-US president Joe Biden, negotiations towards phase two were to begin during the initial six-week phase.- ‘Unthinkable’ -Mkhaimar Abusada, an associate professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, said that if Netanyahu “was really interested in releasing all Israeli hostages, he could have gone with a second phase of the ceasefire. But he has never made any commitment to an end to the war”.Speaking before the UN Security Council, former hostage Eli Sharabi called on the world to “bring them all home”, referring to the dozens still held by Gaza militants.He said he was “chained, starved, beaten and humiliated” during his Hamas captivity.Resumption of fighting in Gaza has coincided with a reignited protest movement by Israelis who see Netanyahu’s policies as a threat to democracy.On Thursday President Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, spoke of “controversial initiatives that create deep rifts within our nation.”He also called it “unthinkable to resume fighting while still pursuing the sacred mission of bringing our hostages home.”Hamas appealed to Arab and Islamic nations “to take urgent action” in the United Nations Security Council and other forums to halt the renewed fighting.Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel’s latest strikes on Gaza a “catastrophic crime” and said the United States “shares responsiblity”.Hamas’s October attack on Israel that began the war resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.The overall death toll in Gaza since the start of the war is 49,617, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.burs-dv/it/fox

The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked Friday, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.”The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said.He will leave his post when his successor is appointed or by April 10 at the latest, the statement said.Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993.Bar, meant to end his tenure only next year, was appointed Shin Bet chief in October 2021 by the previous Israeli government that briefly forced Netanyahu from power between June 2021 and December 2022.His relations with Netanyahu were strained even before the unprecedented October Hamas attack which sparked the war in Gaza, notably over proposed judicial reforms that had split the country.Relations worsened after the March 4 release of the internal Shin Bet report on the Hamas attack.It acknowledged the agency’s own failure in preventing the attack, but also said “a policy of quiet had enabled Hamas to undergo massive military buildup”.Bar had already hinted that he would resign before the end of his term, taking responsibility for his agency’s failure to prevent the attack.- Secret motives -Bar’s dismissal provoked the anger of the opposition and led to demonstrations accusing Netanyahu of threatening democracy.Several thousand people braved bad weather late Thursday to demonstrate outside Netanyahu’s private residence in Jerusalem and then the Israeli parliament, where ministers were meeting.In a letter made public on Thursday, Bar said Netanyahu’s arguments were “general, unsubstantiated accusations that seem to hide the motivations behind the decision to terminate (his) duties”.He wrote the real motives were based on “personal interest” and intended to “prevent investigations into the events leading up to October 7 and other serious matters” being looked at by the Shin Bet.He referred to the “complex, wide-ranging and highly sensitive investigation” involving people close to Netanyahu who allegedly received money from Qatar, a case dubbed “Qatargate” by the media.Bar’s dismissal comes after the Israeli army launched a series of massive and deadly bombardments on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, following a two-month truce and “targeted” ground operations.Netanyahu said the operations were intended to put pressure on Hamas to release the 58 hostages remaining in the territory.In rare criticism of Netanyahu, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Thursday that he was worried the resumption of strikes in a time of crisis could undermine “national resilience”.