Anonymous Attacks Saudi Government in Protest of Impending Execution
Saudi Arabia’s government will soon execute a young man named Ali Mohammed al-Nimr for his pro-democracy demonstrations during the Arab Spring in 2012. In response to the Saudi government’s planned execution of al-Nimr, the hacktivist group Anonymous, infamous (or famous) for its cyber vigilantism, has attacked Saudi government websites.
But al-Nimr’s punishment is more than just the death penalty; in an absolutely horrendous and savage reaction to al-Nimr’s teenage protests, The Saudi government will beheaded al-Nimr before crucifying his body and putting it on display as a warning for other Saudis. In modern day Saudi Arabia, crucifixion is a relatively rare punishment.
People around the world are outraged, and some are pushing their governments to try to convince the Saudi government to change its mind regarding al-Nimr’s punishment, including French President François Hollande, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and the United Kingdom’s Labour Party Leader and Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn. Individuals have taken to social media as an outlet for their frustrations concerning al-Nimr’s impending execution; the hastag #OpNimr has become common on Twitter.
Anonymous – #OpNimr http://t.co/ALun1vMsR2
— anonymous.morroco (@anonimmorroco) September 28, 2015
To make the situation even more complicated, Saudi Arabia has just been chosen to head the United Nations’ Human Rights Panel, a panel that also includes Algeria, Chile, Greece and Lithuania.
In the past, Anonymous has also targeted groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church and Sony. It is also supportive of Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks as well as 2011 and 2012’s Occupy movement. While Anonymous hasn’t gotten much news coverage in recent years, but it has been highly critical of police shootings of unarmed African-Americans in the United States as well as Jihadists’ attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
