In May 2021, the Saudi authorities launched an arrest campaign, detaining people they claim are members of the bee movement.
The bee movement is an online movement founded by Jamal Khashoggi. They focus on fighting misinformation, informing about human rights abuses, and confronting pro-regime social media trolls.
The project aimed to undermine a group of pro-Saudi government trolls by building an online human rights network using foreign SIM cards. Twitter requires a phone number to verify accounts, so having a foreign number can help activists avoid being traced, arrested, and killed by the Saudi government.
Saudi Arabia’s regime developed an advanced army of trolls, not unlike the Russian bot farms that spread misinformation in the 2016 US presidential elections or the CCP bot farms that deny Uighur genocide and harass dissidents. The Saudi troll bot farm is overseen by Saud Al-Qahtani a close collaborator of Mohammed bin Salman (M.B.S). The Saudi troll farms would swarm the Twitter accounts of journalists, activists, and others critical of the regime and engulf them with abuse, pro-regime propaganda, manipulating Saudi Twitter towards the government’s favoured narrative.
Khashoggi and Abdulaziz nicknamed the Saudi government troll network, “the Flies” and began to counter it with their own network of anti trolls called “the Bees”, which would amplify independent voices critical M.B.S and Saudi Arabia. In 2018 when the Bees began to pick up steam Jamal Khashoggi was asked to visit the Istanbul consulate where he was murdered by M.B.S’s henchmen. Continue
Yasmeen AlGhofaili is a Saudi young woman who was born in 1995. She joined Twitter on June 2020. She was interested in human rights, the rights of prisoners of conscience, and women’s rights. She called for the equal distribution of wealth and the improvement of the income of citizens, and for creating jobs that would provide a dignified life for the Saudi citizen. Yasmeen’s activism was in an oppressive state that does not respect the freedom of speech and lands anyone who opposes the regime in prison. Therefore she was arrested 8 pm on the 17th of May 2021.
Abdulrahman AlSheikhi is a Saudi young man who was born in 1995. He joined Twitter on September 2020. He was interested in human rights, the rights of prisoners of conscience, and women’s rights. He called for the equal distribution of wealth and the improvement of the income of citizens, and for creating jobs that would provide a dignified life for the Saudi citizen. Dahmi’s activism was in an oppressive state that does not respect the freedom of speech and lands anyone who opposes the regime in prison. Therefore he was arrested 2 am on the 18th of May 2021.
Rina Abdulaziz is a Saudi young woman who was born in 2001. She joined Twitter on March 2021. She was interested in human rights, the rights of prisoners of conscience, and women’s rights. She called for the equal distribution of wealth and the improvement of the income of citizens, and for creating jobs that would provide a dignified life for the Saudi citizen. Rina’s activism was in an oppressive state that does not respect the freedom of speech and lands anyone who opposes the regime in prison. Therefore she was arrested on the 12th of May 2021.
