Thursday, 25 June_Amnesty International has rebuked Saudi Arabia’s crackdown against campaigners and intellectuals, calling upon authorities to immediately release a group of Saudi women activists that have been “detained simply for demanding equality and defending human rights.”
The Britain-based organization mentioned Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef among several Saudi advocates for women’s rights, whom officials have jailed for almost two years.
“Many of these women led the campaign for the lifting of the driving ban on women over the past years. The ban was lifted in June 2018, but the women who made it happen still haven’t had the opportunity to legally sit behind the wheel, instead they are sitting behind bars, locked up in prison cells," it said.
It added the wave of arrests didn’t end, as in July 2018 Saudi authorities arrested Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sada, also prominent women activists who remain detained.
Amnesty International further highlighted that several of the women activists had endured torture, sexual abuse and other forms of ill-treatment, and that they were held incommunicado and in solitary confinement with no access to their families or lawyers.