Atheist jailed 10 years and given 2,000 lashes for Tweeting

King Abdullah

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to ten years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter.

The 28-year-old reportedly refused to repent, insisting what he wrote reflected his beliefs and that he had the right to express them.

The hardline Islamic state has a law defining atheist beliefs as 'terrorism'.

Religious police in charge of monitoring social networks found more than 600 tweets denying the existence of God, ridiculing Koranic verses, accusing all prophets of lies and saying their teachings fuelled hostilities, it was reported.