Saudi Arabia Detains More Women’s Rights Activists

Local Editor

Authorities in Saudi Arabia have detained two women’s rights activists, human-rights groups said Wednesday, broadening a campaign of arrests that has drawn international criticism and tainted the kingdom’s top-down reforms agenda.

Those rounded up in recent days include Samar Badawi, who is known for having challenged the kingdom’s male guardianship rules and is the sister of one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent detainees, liberal blogger Raif Badawi. Ms. Badawi, who was detained Monday in her hometown of Jeddah, had also campaigned for her brother’s release.

She is one of at least 18 civil-rights activists arrested since May, four of whom have been temporarily released, activists say. Many others are banned from traveling outside the kingdom. None of them is known to have been formally charged.

Spokespersons for the Saudi government didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

“Mohammed bin Salman is shutting down anyone who has an independent voice,” said a Saudi activist, who declined to be identified. “Anyone who doesn’t fully rally behind him and his narrative is being removed.”

The government hasn’t targeted just rights activists. Over the past year, authorities have detained hundreds of people, among them outspoken clerics and prominent businessmen accused of corruption.

The government said earlier this year that those detained were suspected of having aided unspecified “foreign circles.” Saudi media close to the government described several of them as traitors.

Also arrested on Monday were Nassima al-Sadah, an activist from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, and Amal al-Harbi, the wife of a prominent jailed activist.

“The arrests of Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah signal that the Saudi authorities see any peaceful dissent, whether past or present, as a threat to their autocratic rule,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said Wednesday.

Prominent activists who remain jailed include 29-year-old Loujain al-Hathloul, who became the face of the driving movement in Saudi Arabia after she defied the driving ban by attempting to cross the border from the United Arab Emirates into the kingdom in 2014. Another detainee is Hatoon al-Fassi, a university professor who was arrested two days before the government lifted the driving ban—a cause she had long campaigned for.

The United Nations’ human-rights office on Tuesday called on Saudi Arabia to release the detained activists.

“We urge the government of Saudi Arabia to unconditionally release all human-rights defenders and activists who have been detained for their peaceful human-rights work,” Ravina Shamdasani, the office’s spokeswoman, said in a press briefing. “Any investigation must be held in a transparent manner with full respect for due process rights.”

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team