Saudi Arabia Detains Activists Who Pushed to End Ban on Women Driving

BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia has detained at least five people connected to the campaign to end the kingdom’s longtime ban on women driving, despite the fact the government has promised to lift the ban next month, associates of the detainees said Friday.

The Saudi government has billed the lifting of the driving ban as part of a reform push spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The changes have also included curtailing the powers of religious authorities and expanding the entertainment options available in the conservative kingdom.

But those efforts have coincided with waves of arrests that have scooped up clerics, businessmen, members of the royal family and activists who have a history of challenging the government’s positions. Many of them have not been officially charged with crimes despite having been held for months.

In a message on Twitter early Saturday, the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed that seven people had been arrested after being accused of communicating with “foreign entities,” infiltrating the government and providing financial support to “hostile elements abroad to undermine the security and stability of the kingdom.”

The ministry did not provide the names of those arrested.

But among those detained were women who had challenged the government’s driving ban by getting in their cars and driving, and men who had supported their cause or had defended them in court.

They included Loujain al-Hathloul, who was detained for more than 70 days in 2014 after she tried to drive her car across the border into Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates.

Before her detention by Saudi authorities this week, Hathloul had been studying in the UAE, where she was arrested by security forces and forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia, her associates said.

After her return, she and a number of other activists who had challenged the driving ban were barred from leaving the kingdom.

Others detained included Eman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Yousef, who challenged the driving ban, and Ibrahim Mudaimeegh, who had served as Hathloul’s lawyer.

The detainees’ associates spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from Saudi authorities.

It was unclear why the government detained the activists.

Around the time last year that the government announced it was going to lift the ban on women driving, authorities contacted a number of women who had campaigned against the ban and warned them to avoid talking about the issue on social media or with journalists, some of them said later.

Many of them assumed that the government did not want them to take credit publicly for the policy change in an absolute monarchy that suppresses activism.