Toby C. Jones, who teaches Middle East history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, is the author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Harvard, 2010). Follow him on twitter @tobycraigjones.
Hamza Kashgari’s persecution—merely for tweeting uncertainty about his religious faith—exposes the cynicism and brutality of the kingdom’s royal-clerical rulers.
The royals have spared no expense in crushing or minimizing the impact of the revolutions.