Muawiya Alrawahi. Photo by Jillian C York

It has been reported on Twitter that outspoken Omani blogger Muawiya Alrawahi (interviewed by Global Voices here), known for his controversial ideas, has been detained because of a blog post and some tweets in which he criticised Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the ruler of Oman.

Twitter user Ammar Almamari (@omanammar) wrote on the morning of February 6:

This is a reference to a long blog post from February 3 called “Covenant of Salvation” (which has since been deleted, but a cached copy is here [Ar]). In it Muawiya talked openly about a number of things, including suffering sexual abuse as a young teenager, his earlier involvement with Oman's Internal Security Service (ISS), his admiration for and connections to ex-ISS Brigadier-General Khamis Al Ghraibi (now imprisoned under charges of spying for the UAE), his lack of religious belief, his disillusionment with Oman, and his loss of faith in the ruler Sultan Qaboos.

Muawiya ended the post by saying:

Muawiya's tweets [Ar] were equally critical of Sultan Qaboos and the political situation in Oman, and in addition he called for the downfall of all Gulf rulers.

Blogger Ferass Alryami has written a post in solidarity with Muawiya:

Others have argued [Ar] that Muawiya crossed too many lines, especially when talking about Islam.

Recently two Omani journalists were jailed for “insulting” the country's Minister of Justice by publishing allegations of corruption within the Ministry of Justice. Oman's recently amended penal code outlines punishment for those who undermine the “prestige of the state”, and an article in the press and publications law prohibits “disseminating all that would compromise state security, internal or external”.