Editor Ziyad al-Sofyani was sentenced to nearly eight years and Osama Khalid to 32 years in prison for “influencing public opinion” and “violating public morals” by publishing illegal content.

what is known

The Wikimedia Foundation has released a statement. He denied the activists’ report, claiming that there was no “infiltration” and that Wikipedia’s leadership had no “rank”..

It all started with an investigation conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation last month. The result was 16 users being blocked due to a “conflict of interest”. It consisted of the fact that several authors coordinated the organization of the platform to “advance the goals of third parties” in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Simply put, these 16 people are believed to have written on behalf of the Saudi government to positively review material and remove objectionable material. However, it should be noted that Wikimedia does not directly indicateIt was the government of the country that gave them such authority. The American human rights group “Democracy for the Arab World Now” (DAWN) wrote mostly about this in its report. In the same place, he stated that all these banned people are also agents who spy for the Saudi government. Them Identifies authors whose materials do not comply with the country’s censorship rules. Among them were two current inmates.

Responding to accusations from DAWN and other organizations involved in the report, Wikimedia says the investigation did not find that the Saudi Arabian government had infiltrated Wikipedia’s highest echelons. Moreover, there is no ranking among the authors.

Our investigation did not reveal that the Saudi government had “infiltrated” Wikipedia’s upper echelons. And there really is no “rank” among Wikipedia administrators. Our investigation also did not include any references to Saudis acting under the influence of the Saudi government. While we don’t know where these volunteers actually lived, the bans on any volunteers who might be Saudi were part of a much broader crackdown on 16 editors across the Middle East and North Africa region.
– said a Wikimedia representative in an interview with Ars.

Activists say Wikimedia “mysterically” skipped details from the disclosure, and sources say the sources “confirm that the ban targeted 16 Saudi users, Wikimedia’s top editorial team in the region, after they were found to have served the Saudi government to promote positive content in the government.” and remove content that criticizes him, including information about political prisoners in the country.”

DAWN also explains in its statement that by “superior” administrators they mean the access level of encyclopedia users, and that Wikipedia “affects their ability to perform certain actions.” These users are not Wikipedia employees, but volunteers who have been given access to various tools. According to Wikipedia, only administrators have “exclusive access to a set of tools that allow them to perform certain actions. These tools include the ability to delete pages, protect users, block and unblock them, and edit fully protected pages.”