Saudi authorities are rounding up activists who campaigned for women drivers

The shortcomings of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman’s much-publicized reform agenda have been laid bare with a crackdown by Saudi authorities on four leading women activists who had campaigned for the women's right to drive — just weeks before the driving ban is due to end.

The women — including prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul ­— were arrested last week along with two male advocates for women’s rights, according to rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have called for the immediate release of the activists.

Saudi authorities and government-aligned media launched a smear campaign over the weekend to discredit the activists as “traitors,” who were undermining the country’s social fabric. Official statements accused them, along with another individual, of belonging to a “cell” which posed a threat to national security due to its “contact with foreign entities with the aim of undermining the country’s stability.”

A graphic showing the faces of the six jailed activists has been circulating on social media, with a hashtag branding them “Agents of Embassies.” A headline in the daily al-Jazirah newspaper branded them “traitors.”

“This chilling smear campaign is an extremely worrying development for women human rights defenders and activists in Saudi Arabia. Such blatant intimidation tactics are entirely unjustifiable,” said Samah Hadid, Amnesty International’s Middle East campaign director.

Right groups say the arrests highlight the flimsiness of the reform agenda promoted by the Kingdom’s powerful young Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman.

“Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has presented himself as a ‘reformer,’ but such promises fall flat amid the intensifying crackdown on dissenting voices in the kingdom,” said Hadid.

“His pledges amount to very little if those who fought for the right to drive are now all behind bars for peacefully campaigning for freedom of movement and equality.”

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Others detained include activists Eman al-Nafjan, Aziza al-Yousef, and Aisha al-Manea, who has campaigned for women's right to drive for decades. The detained men are Ibrahim al-Modeimigh, a lawyer and women's rights advocate, and Mohammad al-Rabea, a youth activist who organizes a literary salon for young men and women in Riyadh.

Some of those detained had also signed a September 2016 petition calling on King Salman to abolish male guardianship — a repressive system which requires women to gain permission of a male relative in order to travel overseas, marry or make other decisions.

Last year King Salman signed a royal decree to end the driving ban, to come into force on June 24 as part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 reform agenda, which seeks, among other changes, to bring more women into the workforce. A review of the male guardianship system was ordered earlier this month. Other recent changes include the opening of movie theaters and music venues, and allowing women into sports stadiums for the first time.

But for activists, the detentions show that deep-seated change in the kingdom remains a long way off. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said the arrests sent a clear message “that anyone expressing skepticism about the Crown Prince’s rights agenda faces time in jail,” while Sydney-based Saudi activist Manal Al-Sharif told CNN: “We are back to square one.”

“We used to live in a police state; if you speak up you go to jail,” he said. “And then there would be a defamation campaign against you, saying all sort of untrue things. Character assassination. We are seeing the same pattern again now.”

Cover image: A Saudi woman sits in the driver's seat with a Lebanese driving instructor as they test-drive a car during an automotive exhibition for women in the capital Riyadh on May 13, 2018.(AYEZ NURELDINE / AFP)