Hamza Kashgari
| Hamza Kashgari Mohamad Najeeb حمزة كاشغري |
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| Born | 1989 (age 27–28) |
| Nationality | Saudi Arabian |
| Occupation | Poet, columnist |
| Notable credit(s) | Al-Bilad Columnist (until Jan 2012) |
Hamza Kashgari Mohamad Najeeb (often Hamza Kashgari, Arabic: حمزة كاشغري; born 1989) is a Saudi poet and a former columnist for the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Bilad. In 2011, he was on a Mabahith watchlist of pro-democracy activists.
Kashgari became the subject of a controversy after he was accused of insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in three short messages published through the Twitter social networking service. King Abdullah ordered that Kashgari be arrested "for crossing red lines and denigrating religious beliefs in God and His Prophet". Kashgari left Saudi Arabia, trying to seek political asylum in New Zealand. On February 12, 2012, he was extradited from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, back to Saudi Arabia and a Malaysian High Court injunction against his extradition was issued. Whether Kashgari was deported before or after the issuing of the injunction is disputed between Malaysian authorities and Lawyers for Liberty. Saudi authorities jailed him for nearly two years without trial for his Twitter messages.
According to Gulf News, Kashgari was born to a family of Uyghur ancestry, which had emigrated from Kashgar, China. Hamza Kashgari worked as a columnist for the Saudi Arabian daily Al-Bilad. On February 7, 2012, Al-Bilad issued a statement saying that they had fired Kashgari five weeks earlier for the "inadequacy of his general views for the approach of the newspaper".
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