In May 2018, just weeks before the ban on women to drive a car was lifted, Saudi authorities seized seven prominent women's rights fighters. One of them is the literary scholar Loujain al-Hathloul.

The trial would have begun in April 2019, but was postponed.

Her case was filed in a court in the capital Riyadh on Wednesday, reports DN.

The state-controlled news agency Saudi Press Agency states that the arrested have "conspired with foreign elements and violated the religious and national norms".

They are accused of "undermining the security and stability of the kingdom". The women were later hanged as traitors in Saudi media, reports DN.

Violation of female driving ban

Today, 30-year-old Loujain al-Hathloul drove into Saudi Arabia from the neighboring United Arab Emirates in the summer of 2014, with a driver's license she obtained there. She filmed the campaign and posted a video on social media, which received a lot of attention worldwide.

She was jailed for two months and remanded in June 2017 for challenging Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving.

When arrested and imprisoned in May 2018, she was in the process of starting a center for abused women.

Tortured in isolation

Loujain al-Hathloul has received no mercy, but is currently in the al-Ha'ir high security prison in Riyadh. From time to time she has been isolated and has been subjected to torture, including in the form of electric shocks and abuses, says human rights organization Amnesty.

Saudi Arabia was the last country in the world to abolish the union for women to drive, SVT News reported in 2017.

The ban was lifted in June 2018.