Saudi Arabia releases eight people held in activist crackdown
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has temporarily released eight people accused of communicating with organisations opposed to the kingdom but is holding nine others in detention, state news agency SPA reported on Saturday.
The public prosecutor said it had interrogated people arrested last month, whom human rights groups identified as women’s rights activists.
In a statement, the public prosecutor said the detainees had admitted to communicating and cooperating with individuals and organisations opposed to the kingdom, recruiting people to get secret information to hurt the country’s interests, and offering material and emotional support to hostile elements abroad.
The statement did not identify the detainees, and Reuters was unable immediately to verify their names.
A total of 17 people were arrested, eight of whom have been temporarily released, comprising five women and three men, the statement said. Nine people, five men and four women, remain in detention “after sufficient evidence was made available and for their confessions of charges attributed to them”.
International rights watchdogs have reported the detention of at least 11 activists in the past few weeks, mostly women who previously campaigned for the right to drive and an end to the kingdom’s male guardianship system, which requires women to obtain the consent of a male relative for major decisions. — Reuters