In a recent crackdown on activists, scholars and journalists, Saudi Arabia has arrested two prominent women’s rights activists an international rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that Saudi authorities arrested Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah, two women who campaigned for women’s right to drive as well as the lifting of the male guardianship system for the last two days.
While condemning the arrests, Sarah, Leah Whitson, Middle-East Director at Human Rights Watch said,
“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,”
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Human rights watch further reported that more than a dozen women’s rights activists have been targeted by Saudi Arabia since May; most of the women had campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom’s male guardianship system, which requires that women obtain the consent of a male relative before making major decisions.
One of the arrested women, Badawi is a recipient of the United States’ International Women of Courage Award awarded to her in 2012 for challenging the guardianship system. She was also among the first women who signed a petition calling on the government to allow women to drive, vote and run in local elections.
Her brother Raif Badawi who is also a human rights campaigner was sentenced to ten years in prison by Saudi Arabia in 2014 on charges of insulting Islam on his blog.
The other woman activist, Sadah is from the restive Shia – majority Qatif province and has also campaigned to abolish the guardianship system and the right to drive. She ran for office in the 2015 local elections which saw women run in elections for the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia although Saudi authorities ended up removing her name from the list of candidates.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has courted Western allies to support his economic reform plan, offering billions of dollars of arms sales and also promising to fight radicalism in the kingdom.
Saudi authorities arrested 10 women activists back in May including; Eman al-Nafjan, Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, Aisha al-Manea, Ibrahim Modeimigh and Mohammed al-Rabea.
Saudi Arabia said seven of those arrested were arrested for suspicious contacts with foreign entities as well as offering financial support to enemies overseas; Saudi officials warned that further arrests could be carried out as investigations proceeded.
Saudi Arabia is the strictest gender biased country in the world whose constitution is based on the Islamic sharia and restricts the activities of women in the kingdom.
In June, the government ended a decades-old ban on women driving cars as part of a bid to diversify the economy away from oil and open up the cloistered lifestyle of Saudis’.
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