Two Saudi men have been arrested in connection with a video about poverty in Riyadh (above) which was posted on YouTube. Feras Bughnah and Hosam al-Deraiwish were summoned for questioning on Sunday and were reported to be still in detention on Tuesday.

The Saudi Jeans blog, which has details of the story, says:

While the detention appears related to the video, it is still unclear what was the exact reason for the detention, said one source who is following the case but asked not to be named for fear of retribution from authorities.

"One theory is that they have been detained because their YouTube video was shown on a TV channel owned by the opposition abroad," he said. "Another theory is that authorities did not like the strong tone of the video and wanted to make an example out of these guys."

The video, lasting slightly less than nine minutes, has been viewed more than 735,000 times on YouTube and the arrests have prompted about 17,000 tweets. One Twitter user commented: "We arrest people who are trying to change the country for the better."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 19 October 2011.