A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to ten years in prison as well as 2,ooo lashes for expressing his atheism on Twitter.

The 28-year old man reportedly refused to repent, stating that all he wrote reflected what he believed in and argued that he had the right to express them. The Saudi Arabian religious police in charge of monitoring social networks found more than 600 tweets denying the existence of God, making fun of verses from the Koran, accusing prophets of lies and saying their teachings fueled hostilities.

The court also fined the man 20,000 riyals, about £4,000. He was sentenced under a controversial law that defines atheism as terrorism.

In 2014, under the late Saudi King Abdullah, the oil rich kingdom introduced a series of new laws that described atheists as terrorists. The new laws were aimed at clamping down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”.