Dammam: A young engineer from Alappuzha has been sentenced to five years in jail and fined Saudi Riyal 1.5 lakh (approx Rs 29 lakh) by a local court of Saudi Arabia for defamation through social media.
Vishnu Dev, who was working as planning engineer with a contractor for Aramco, was arrested for defamatory comments through Twitter four months ago. The case was registered that the accused defamed the legal system of Saudi and Prophet Mohammed. The accused made the comments while conversing with a European woman via Twitter.
Saudi Arabia recently amended its laws against misuse of social media. According to the new law, defamation through social media is a serious offence. Sharing an abusive or defamatory content forwarded by another person also would attract punishment. This for the first time an Indian is being punished for such an offence after the law was tightened.