The frightening Twitter hunt for a Saudi dissident in exile

“The threats are coming from all angles: TikTok, YouTube, Twitter… They want to kill me before I get political asylum in the United Kingdom,” Rabih Alenezi, a former colonel with the Saudi police, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team by telephone. 

Alenezi is living in a constant state of fear in a location that he has managed, for the time being, to keep secret. His terror has become more acute since a mysterious Twitter account offered 10,000 Saudi riyals (around €2,400) to anyone who had information on his whereabouts. 

I got to the United Kingdom in February. It wasn’t my original plan to stay in the UK and live here. However, I was already shocked by the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.

Two weeks after my arrival in the UK, I published a video where I spoke about the reasons that I was leaving the security forces. I resigned mid-broadcast. I immediately got a wave of online harassment, but I said, what the hell, I can keep doing my videos. 

NOTE: Since the publication of this article in French on April 7, 2023, the Twitter account at the origin of the harassment of Alenezi, “Fahad Bin Sattam” (@fahadnoic), has been deleted. 

A manhunt unfolds on Twitter

On March 17, Rabih Alenezi’s Twitter account was hacked. His tweets criticizing the regime were erased and, in their place, the account was flooded with photos of Mohamed Bin Salman, the crown prince of the Saudi kingdom.  

On March 17, Rabih Alenezi’s Twitter account was hacked. His tweets criticising the regime were erased and, in their place, the account was flooded with photos of Mohamed Bin Salman, the crown prince of the Saudi kingdom. 

The nightmare really began for Rabih Alenezi on March 22. That day, he went to a restaurant in central London and started a live stream on TikTok. Among the 5,000 people following him, the Twitter account “Fahad Bin Sattam” (@fahadnoic – since deleted) boasted that he had been able to locate the former colonel’s position and tweeted to his followers: “I’m live. Give me a few minutes, I’ll get him kicked out of the cafe.”

About 45 minutes into the live stream, a waiter interrupts Alenezi to tell him that the restaurant has received complaints and asks him to stop the broadcast. In an excerpt from the video, the restaurant manager is heard explaining that the restaurant had received calls from people complaining about this “kind of political speech”. Alenezi then stops his live broadcast.

On Twitter, “Fahad Bin Sattam” confirmed that he had called the restaurant several times to “denounce” his compatriot. He tweeted an excerpt from Alenezi’s TikTok live stream, addressing the former colonel directly: “I will always be after you… This time it was a restaurant, but next time it will be your home.”

Bin Sattam’s followers commended him for his “patriotic efforts”. One of them wrote: “Traitors, and especially those who are military, deserve the edge of the sword.”

In a video filmed in the street on March 23, Rabih Alenezi talks about the restaurant incident. 

On March 23, Alenezi started streaming from another café in London. “Fahad Bin Sattam” doxxed Alenezi again – determining the location were he was filming. However, by that time, Alenezi had left the café. 

On March 27, “Fahad Bin Sattam” posted a Tweet offering 10,000 Saudi riyals (€2,400) to “anyone who had information about this individual, with the following information: he is renting a studio in London, probably in Kensington”. He added images of the inside of the apartment where the former colonel was staying, taken from his TikTok videos. 

Three days later, the account told its followers to focus on trying to find the property where Alenezi was staying on British housing sites Zoopla Property or OnTheMarket. He said he’d offer 5,000 riyals (€1,200) extra to “the first person to find him before me”. 

Hundreds of Saudi accounts participate in the manhunt

Hundreds of tweets praised “Fahad Bin Sattam” for what he was doing. 

“Brother Sattam, please accept an additional 1,000 riyals (€200) from me to add to the 10,000 riyals (€2,400) you’re already offering,” one tweet offered. 

“His body language betrays his terror. He is feeling his neck, which will be separated from his body,” another account tweeted.

At the urging of the “Fahan Bin Sattam” account, many followers joined Alenezi’s live streams on TikTok, filling the comments sections with threats and insults. “Sattam” then published screengrabs of the insults on Twitter. 

“He blocked me, that b*****d! I really pissed him off with my comments: he didn’t want to read the truth,” said one social media user of Alenezi. 

Others were busy doxxing Alenezi, sharing the coordinates of his possible locations.

No action from Twitter, despite multiple reports

A number of social media users, defending Alenezi’s right to freedom of expression, said that they reported “Fahad Bin Sattam’s” threatening messages to Twitter, arguing that he was inciting violence and hate. 

On March 28, “Fahad Bin Sattam” revealed that someone in Germany had reported his tweet offering the 10,000 riyal (€2,400) reward, but that Twitter had decided that the tweet didn’t violate Twitter rules or German law. 

Our team contacted Twitter’s security services several times for comment. However, the only response we got was the “poop” emoji, which Elon Musk announced on March 19 would be the automatic response to press requests.

‘Any minute, I fear that a masked man will appear at my door to kill me’

Rabih Alenezi continued: 

Right now, I am doing my best to limit contact with strangers, especially any Arabs. I don’t go to the mosque, I’m really anxious. 

When the “Fahad Bin Sattam” account located the hotel where I was staying on March 27, I changed my address immediately. Then he found the street where I was staying and I left again, shortly after his tweet. 

I’m afraid that, at any moment, a masked man will come to my door and kill me. 

I was passing by a café when a man yelled out “traitor!” in Arabic. I’m sure that he was talking about me.

They [the trolls] became terrified after my posts, as if I was an imminent danger to the Kingdom, but all I did was talk about my experience [in the police] and express my opinion.

They say I am a coward and a traitor. They demand: “Bring me his head”.

As a rule, no one dares to publicly threaten a colonel without the consent or direct order of the Saudi authorities, at the risk of being arrested and thrown in jail… Which leads me to believe that this Twitter account is supported by the regime. 

‘I have witnessed police raids on civilians’ homes at night, I have seen police officers dragging a woman out of her home in the middle of the night’

In Saudi Arabia, a tweet criticising the regime can land you in prison. You can get up to 30 years in prison for criticising a ministry or even a law. The Saudi regime is no longer afraid of international condemnation. We saw this with the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi or the conviction of Saad Ibrahim Almadi for a few tweets criticising the regime [Editor’s note: sentenced to 19 years in prison when visiting family in Riyadh, Almadi, a Saudi-American, was released in March 2023, but is banned from travelling], and they were both living abroad.

In April 2022, I was assigned to spy on Shiite worshippers during the month of Ramadan in Al Qatif, in the east of the country. The regime wanted to stir up public opinion against these Shiite tribes who were demanding their rights. But I used a family holiday as an excuse not to go. In 2020, I also managed to get out of another mission to repress demonstrations in Tabuk, in the northwest [due to tensions between local tribes and the authorities over a controversial urban expansion project]. I said I was sick, so I didn’t have to participate.

I have witnessed police raids on civilians’ homes at night, I have seen police officers dragging a woman out of her home in the middle of the night… In prisons, you hear the screams of tortured prisoners, of people being raped. What comes out in the media is only a fraction of the human rights violations in Saudi Arabia.

Alenezi says he has no police protection in the UK. He has applied for asylum in the UK, the United States and Canada, which he hopes will help bring him a sense of safety.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to confirm with the London police that a complaint had been filed regarding the threats toward Alenezi. An investigation was still ongoing as of March 31. 

We also reached out to the Saudi embassy in the UK which did not respond to our requests.

Who is behind the threatening account?

The FRANCE 24 Observers team looked into the Twitter account that launched this manhunt, which also tweets about other Saudi dissidents living abroad. 

The account was created in December 2021, but has no record of any activity before December 24, 2022. The account has not used any other username since it was created, according to our research.

When it first began, the account mainly posted about local and international football, but later deleted many of these tweets. 

In his bio, “Fahad Bin Sattam” said he was interested in “Saudi passion and identity” and listed an email address as a way to contact him about “any information on the Saudi opposition”. Followed by more than 34,000 subscribers, the account followed 713 people, mostly opponents of the Saudi regime, political asylum seekers and Arabic-speaking journalists.

A ‘digital army’ indirectly run by the regime

Abdullah Alaoudh is the Saudi head of the Washington DC-based NGO The Freedom Initiative. He lobbies the US Congress for the protection of Saudi dissidents abroad and raises awareness of the risks faced by Saudi political refugees.

Alaoudh posted about Alenezi’s case, prompting a number of replies from accounts mocking his outrage. One reply even included an edited photo depicting the Saudi crown prince with his foot on the heads of both men and the words, “Crush their faces into the ground. Slit their necks with your cleaver”.

For Alaoudh, these kind of threats against the exiled police officer are all part of a Saudi strategy that puts online pressure on those the regime designates as opponents. In 2018, a New York Times investigation revealed the extent of the regime’s efforts to silence its critics, using troll factories and spies working at Twitter.

The phenomenon of “digital armies” serving oppressive regimes is not new, but Mohammad bin Salman is using this tactic to occupy all the space for expression of his fellow citizens. The internet was a kind of informal Saudi parliament that we never had, and MBS is seeking to invade this space of virtual freedom. 

Digital armies are used to promote the regime, terrorise and harass opponents, and play on the social networking algorithm to change the narratives in Saudi Arabia. They appear to have bots that detect keywords, such as the initials “MBS” or “Vision 2030” [Editor’s note: a global project launched by the kingdom to expand Saudi investments abroad].

These “cyber warriors” typically target Saudi dissidents like me living abroad. As a test, I tweeted a few Qur’anic verses that had no  political overtones, but I was still inundated with hateful comments. The aim of these attacks is to provoke the victim and sully their image with their Saudi audience.

For example, these accounts will flood critical tweets with pro-regime hashtags or tweets glorifying the crown prince.

This “Fahad Bin Sattam” openly says “hunt down all traitors”. This is transcontinental oppression. We have reported several troll accounts en masse to Twitter, with no meaningful response. 

We have also officially reported these incidents of harassment to authorities in Canada, the US and the UK, where most Saudi refugees and asylum seekers are located. These countries do not want to be the scene of extrajudicial exactions.