Samar Badawi, a prominent Saudi human rights advocate – and the sister of jailed blogger Raif Badawi – has been arrested and is being held in the same prison as her brother, according to activists and family members.
In a series of tweets Raif Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, said Samar had been arrested and transferred to Dharhan central prison after four hours of questioning.
According to Haidar, Amnesty International and the Raif Badawi Foundation – a Canadian advocacy group – Samar is believed to have been arrested Tuesday for posting to a Twitter account used to campaign for the release of her former husband, Waleed Abu al-Khair, and for publishing of photo of him in jail.Abu al-Khair is a Saudi human rights lawyer currently serving a 15-year sentence, in part for defending Raif Badawi.
In a statement, Amnesty called Samar’s arrest “the latest example of Saudi Arabia’s utter contempt for its human rights obligations and provides further damning proof of the authorities’ intent to suppress all signs of peaceful dissent”.
Raif Badawi has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia since 2012 and was sentenced in 2014 by a Saudi court to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam and criticizing the regime on his blog. He received 50 lashes just over one year ago.
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