seccosiny

Social Media Help Keep the Door Open to Sustained Dissent Inside Saudi Arabia

When Manal al-Sharif posted a video of herself breaking the law by driving her cheap designer bags S.U.V. around this hot, flat city and called for a collective protest on Friday, the government responded harshly: she was jailed for nine days.

But unlike in the past, government censure did not quash debate. Instead, the Internet buzzed to designer handbags wholesale in Ms. Sharif’s defense, building on the surge of social media here after the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Twitter and Facebook overflowed with comments denouncing both Saudi Arabia’s ruling princes and the clerics who called for her to be flogged as Neanderthals completely detached from the realities of designer handbags on sale for women here.

More than 30,000 comments about Ms. Sharif’s cheap designer handbags showed up within days on Twitter, the vast majority from supporters, said Abdulaziz al-Shalan, who tracks Saudi-related Twitter messages.