Arrest follows tweet

A Saudi Arabian liberal writer has been arrested for making comments on his Twitter account that are allegedly insulting to Islam, family members say.

Turki Ahmed was arrested yesterday on orders of Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, who was tipped off by a religious organisation, they said.

The interior ministry did not confirm the arrest.

Ahmed, on his Twitter account, attacked radical Islamists he said were twisting the Prophet Mohammed’s ‘‘message of love’’ in what he described as ‘‘a neo-Nazism which is on the rise in the Arab world – Islamic extremism’’.

His comments provoked fierce debate on social networking sites in Saudi Arabia between his supporters and detractors.

Online activist Raif Badawi, another Saudi, was arrested in June in Jeddah and accused of apostasy, which carries the death penalty in the Gulf kingdom.

Badawi helped set up a liberal Saudi website, which declared a ‘‘day of liberalism’’ on May 7, calling for protests against the stranglehold of religious officials on public life in the Sunni-ruled monarchy.

Amnesty International condemned Badawi’s prosecution. ‘‘Raif Badawi’s trial for apostasy is a clear case of intimidation against him and others who seek to engage in open debates about the issues that Saudi Arabians face in their daily lives,’’ said Philip Luther, director of the organisation’s Middle East and North Africa division.

‘‘He is a prisoner conscience.’’

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