Saudi Arabia's top Muslim cleric slams Twitter

by: jim kouri | published: 03 31, 2013

A top Saudi Arabian Muslim cleric on Friday slammed users of the Twitter.com web site saying the social media site is a meeting place for clowns who make unsubstantiated claims, unjust allegations and incorrect tweets, according to an American-born official with the Israeli National Police, Joel Wasserhaus.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh bashed Twitter during a meeting of Saudi Arabia’s senior religious scholars on Friday.

The Grand Mufti told the Muslim audience that most of young people are wasting their time on chatting and using the Internet, including Saudi youngsters.

Saudi Arabia has three million Twitter users, more than any country in the Middle East, with a growth rate of 300 percent year-on-year, according to a report by the Social Clinic, a social media think tank.

According to the Social Clinic, between 2011 and 2012, the size of the population that has access to Twitter in The Kingdom increased by more than 3,000 percent. The Saudis account for an average 50 million tweets per month most of written in Arabic.

“Saudi Arabia has not been selfish either, with most of the tweets being in Arabic, Saudi Arabia accounts for 30 percent of the global tweets tweeted in Arabic, placing Arabic at the top of the pyramid of the fastest growing languages on Twitter, yes Arabic is the fastest growing language on Twitter,” according to statement published at the Social Clinic web site.

The Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh is listed as Number 10 among the world's cities with most Tweets and is the only Arab city in the top 20 cities using Twitter, according to the report.

One of the problems for Muslim countries utilizing Internet social media communications is the use of Facebook.com and Twitter.com by terrorist groups to proselytize and inform Muslims about their aspirations and accomplishments such as bombings and increasing their numbers.

For example, on Feb. 3, 2012, the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab complained to Twitter. "For what it's worth," they tweeted from their new account, HSMPress1, "shooting the messenger & suppressing the truth by silencing your opponents isn't quite the way to win the war of ideas."

Jim Kouri, CPP, is founder and CEO of Kouri Associates, a homeland security, public safety and political consulting firm. He's formerly Fifth Vice-President, now a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, an editor for ConservativeBase.com, a columnist for Examiner.com, a contributor to KGAB radio news, and news director for NewswithViews.com. 

He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at St. Peter's University and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.

In addition, he's a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (www.kgab.com) and editor of Conservative Base Magazine (www.conservativebase.com). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

He holds a bachelor of science in Criminal Justice from Southwest University and SCI Technical School in New York City and completed training at the NYC Police Academy, FBI Continuing Education Program, and the Certified Protection Professional (CPP) of the American Society for Industrial Security.

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