Saudi Arabia has detained 7 people including 2 US citizens. It was the first round of arrests since the killing of Journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year.
The Saudi Police department refused to give names.
Salah al-Haidar, a dual Saudi-US citizen who is the son of prominent women’s rights defender Aziza al-Yousef, was one of those arrested, according to two sources familiar with the events.
Haidar is a writer and journalist on social issues. His father owns a home in Vienna, Virginia.
All seven detainees are writers and social media bloggers who are connected to Yousef’s family and are friends with Haidar. They previously engaged in public discussions about reforms and have publicly endorsed women’s rights causes such as the right to drive, sources said.
The October 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a US resident and critic of the government, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sparked international uproar. The number of arrests of dissidents appeared to decrease significantly in the aftermath of Khashoggi’s killing, in what many observers hoped was sign that the kingdom’s crackdown was deescalating,