4 held in Saudi over claims corona is 'punishment from God'

Saudi Arabia has ordered the arrest of four people for claiming the spread of novel coronavirus is a "punishment from Allah (God)".

The public prosecution said it ordered the arrest of "three people who exploited social media to interpret God's will amid the #coronavirus", in a statement shared on Twitter.

The prosecution said it also ordered "the arrest of a person who appeared in a video mocking the #coronacrisis and giving misleading information about the current situation".

The Saudi public prosecution did not name those who were arrested, but Saudi social media was arife with speculations as to their identities.

Among those arrested is believed to be famous Qu'ran reciter Khaled al-Shahri, who posted a video of himself in which he said disasters and epidemics are a punishment from God.

His defenders claim the clip is from two years ago and is not related to coronavirus.

Saudi preacher Ibrahim al-Duwaish is also believed to be one of the four arrested. He shared controversial posts on social media on Thursday, linking the spread of coronavirus to the wrong actions of people.

Khaled Abdullah, who works in the health sector, was also mentioned on social media as being one of the four.

Abdullah deleted a controversial tweet from his Twitter account which linked the spread of Covid-19 to the increased number of entertainment events permitted by the ultra-conservative kingdom, Erem News reported.

It is unclear who the fourth arrestee could be.

The Saudi public prosecution has a unit devoted to monitoring activity on social network sites, according to Erem News.

Source: The New Arab