Saudi authorities have carried out a new wave of arrests sweeping up at least eight journalists and activists as the government tightens its grip on freedom of expression, according to a rights group and an exiled academic
Alaoudh said those arrested in the past two weeks had been active during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. Many of them were still part of “philosophical” book clubs in Saudi Arabia, he added.
Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington-based think tank, said reports that those arrested were people who appeared to have become less politically active signaled that “the dragnet continues to be ever widening.” “It shows a pretty dangerous sign that there may not be any elements within the monarchy holding him back,” she said, referring to the crown prince.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office on March 20, 2018.Notable among those arrested is activist and blogger Fuad al-Farhan, who first started calling for reform while living in the United States, according to Assiri. In 2007, he was arrested in Saudi Arabia and was sentenced in 2014 to five years in prison but did not serve the term because he agreed to stop blogging, he added.
Alaoudh said al-Farhan had demanded the release of all arbitrary detainees in the kingdom during the Arab uprisings of 2011, but that in recent years he had become an entrepreneur and his focus had shifted from politics to business.
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