RIYADH: A Saudi Arabian court banned a popular Saudi cleric for jeopardising public order, it was reported.
Awad al-Qarni, who has more than two million followers on Twitter, was previously accused of links to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, was also fined 100,000 riyals ($27,000), according to reports.
Qarni himself took to Twitter to confirm the verdict on his @awadalqarni handle late Thursday.
“I am prevented from writing” on the account, he wrote, before issuing a Twitter message early Friday thanking his followers.
Qarni was “one of the key clerics of the Sahwa movement,” British scholar Toby Matthieson has written.
The Sahwa emerged in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s and 70s as “a modern form of Islamic activism” which had wide impact and whose founders were exiled Muslim Brothers, according to another expert, Stephane Lacroix.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have all declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a “terrorist group”.
Riyadh’s Specialized Criminal Court, which handles “terrorism” cases, convicted the preacher Thursday of spreading content on Twitter which “could jeopardize public order and provoke public opinion.”
It said the content “could affect the relationship of the people with the leadership, and the relationship of Saudi Arabia with other countries.”
“We have appealed the case,” Qarni said on Twitter.
Lacroix, of Sciences Po university in Paris, said in December that changes late last year to the kingdom’s highest religious authority confirmed an “anti-Sahwa, anti-Muslim Brotherhood” trend.
In 2010, Qarni was charged in absentia by an Egyptian court with funding the Muslim Brotherhood.