GENEVA – The Geneva-based Human Rights and Justice Council condemned, on Friday, an arrests campaign led by Saudi authorities, including femal and male activists from the liberal, leftist and feminist movements, academics and lawyers who have been brought before the courts to defend political prisoners.
A statement issued by the Geneva Council said that the arrests were carried out unlawfully and arbitrarily which make up a flagrant violation of all international human rights conventions and laws.
The statement said that the new arrests of the Saudi authorities prove the decadent reality of the public freedoms in the Kingdom which comes in various forms such as the suppression of opposition voices, the intimidation of those opponents, and the restriction of public freedoms and the right of opinion and expression.
The statement pointed out that no official statement was issued regarding the detainees from the Saudi authorities, nor were they able to meet with lawyers and were not officially charged, which proves that the authorities abused and violated their rights.
According to human rights sources, the arrest of the following political activist was affirmed. Mohammed al-Rabiaa, and the lawyer of the opponent “Hasem” association Ibrahim al-Mudaymegh, a former adviser to the Council of Ministers. In addition to the activist in women and academic field at King Saud University in Riyadh Azizah al-Yousif, and the academic Eman Alnafjan, which have been the most prominent claimers of women driving for long years.
According to the sources, there are also a number of other female detainees, whose names have not yet been identified, in light of the vicious campaign that began on Thursday night. The authorities targeted, in particular, the liberal activists and women activists in an anticipation of the implementation of the decision of driving cars for women, which is due to start in late June.
The source pointed to the presence of new parties participating in the arrests, in addition to the State Security Service, including the so-called Cyber Security Agency, which is managed by the Advisor of the Crown Prince, the interviewer Saud Al-Qahtani.
Many human rights activists have closed their phones and deleted their accounts from social media sites for fear of prosecution.
The campaign is expected to include a larger number of activists, while the reasons for the arrest remain unknown so far. Official press releases have not been released until now.
The Saudi authorities launched a campaign of arrests which is the largest in the country’s history in September last year, targeting hundreds of members of the “Awakening Movement,” one of the largest religious trends in the country, and targeted poets and writers, academics and economists sympathetic to the Islamic trend which Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman threaten to “destroy it.”
None of the former detainees was brought before the courts, nor the reasons for their arrest were explained by the authorities. This led the human rights organizations to criticize the actions of the Saudi regime and the organization a number of vigils during Ben Salman’s visit to Britain.
The Geneva Council on Human Rights and Justice urged immediate international intervention by international human rights bodies and the United Nations team concerned in enforced disappearances to stop arbitrary arrests in Saudi Arabia and pressure the Kingdom to stop violating the public freedoms and human rights.
