Turki al-Jasser, a prominent Saudi journalist who highlighted corruption, women’s rights and the Palestinian cause in his writing, was executed in Saudi Arabia on Saturday after the kingdom’s top court upheld his death sentence, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced on X.

Saudi authorities raided Jasser’s home in March 2018, seizing his electronic devices and arresting him. He was later convicted of terrorism and treason.

But campaigners have long held that he was imprisoned because authorities believed he was running a Twitter account which reported on corruption and human rights violations by those in power, including the Saudi royal family.

Al-Jasser’s supporters and advocates said his execution, committed while world attention was on Israel’s attacks on Iran, demonstrated once again that criticism of the authorities in Saudi Arabia would not be tolerated.

They also drew parallels between Jasser’s execution and the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, another prominent Saudi journalist, who was dismembered by a Saudi murder squad in the kingdom’s embassy in Istanbul.