Saudi authorities have released four detained activists but arrested another one, pressing ahead with a sweeping crackdown just a month before the kingdom lifts its ban on women drivers, campaigners said today.
Walaa al-Shubbar, said to be in her 20s, is the latest activist to be freed after at least 11 were arrested last week, mostly identified by rights groups as veteran women campaigners for the right to drive and to end the conservative Islamic country's male guardianship system.
Campaigners including Amnesty International earlier confirmed the release of Aisha al-Mana, Hessa al-Sheikh and Madeha al-Ajroush, elderly activists well-known for being part of a group that launched the first Saudi protest movement in 1990 for the right to drive.
There was no immediate comment from Saudi officials and the terms of their release have not been made public.
Meanwhile, authorities late yesterday arrested Mohammed al-Bajadi, co-founder of the Association for Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA), one of the few independent human rights groups in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty said.
"The arrest of Mohammad al-Bajadi means that the Saudi Arabian authorities have continued their crackdown on the human rights community," Samah Hadid, Amnesty International's Middle East director of campaigns, told AFP.
"This is a worrying development and we call on the government to release all human rights defenders immediately." Bajadi was sentenced to 10 year in prison in 2015 by what campaigners called a court focused on terrorism cases, but was subsequently released.
Previously jailed in 2011, he went on a hunger strike for weeks after he was held for attending a protest in Riyadh, according to campaigners.
Saudi officials have so far not commented on his latest arrest.
Authorities last week accused the detained women's rights activists of "suspicious contact with foreign parties", providing financial support to hostile nations and attempting to undermine the kingdom's "security and stability".
The names of the four released activists did not appear in reports of state-backed media that branded the detainees traitors and "agents of embassies".
Amnesty denounced the reports as a "chilling smear campaign".
The detainees include three generations of activists, among them 28-year-old Loujain al-Hathloul, also held in 2014 for more than 70 days for attempting to drive from neighbouring United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia, and Aziza al-Yousef, a retired professor at Riyadh's King Saud University.
Their fate remains unclear. Pro-government Okaz newspaper has suggested that some of the detained could face up to 20 years in prison.
The Gulf Centre for Human Rights voiced concern that Hathloul, one of the most outspoken activists, was being held incommunicado, while other campaigners said the detainees had no access to lawyers and their whereabouts were unknown.
The crackdown has sparked a torrent of global criticism, casting a shadow on the kingdom's much-publicised liberalisation push launched by powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who recently undertook a world tour aimed at reshaping his kingdom's austere image.
The self-styled reformer has sought to break with long-held restrictions on women and the mixing of the genders, with the decades-old driving ban on women slated to end June 24.
"The crown prince, who has styled himself as a reformer with Western allies and investors, should be thanking the activists for their contributions to the Saudi women's rights movement," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
"Instead, the Saudi authorities appear to be punishing these women's rights champions for promoting a goal bin Salman alleges to support -- ending discrimination against women." In September last year, Saudi authorities arrested dozens of people, including prominent clerics and intellectuals, in what activists called a coordinated crackdown on dissent as the crown prince consolidates his grip on power.
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