"Prisoners of Conscience" account revealed that the Saudi authorities launched new arrests in recent hours targeting a number of activists. The account, which follows news of opinion prisoners in the kingdom, accused Riyadh of exploiting the preoccupation of local and international public opinion with the Corona crisis to carry out these arrests.

The human rights account showed on Twitter that the arrests included media activist Mohammed Al-Jadeeaeen, doctoral student Majed Al-Ghamdi, and well-known media activist Mansour Al-Rugaiba and others.

The official media in the Kingdom did not provide any news about these arrests or the reasons for their implementation.

Urgently
It was confirmed to us that the young doctoral student # Majed_Al-Ghamdi (the owner of majed405's Twitter account) is among the arbitrary detainees arrested during the campaign launched by the authorities during the past hours. # New_ arrests_Saudi Arabia pic.twitter.com/bb8k63VauW

Prisoners of Conscience (@ m3takl) March 31, 2020

"Prisoners of Conscience" pointed out that the "Maali / News Summary" account on Twitter, which is affiliated with the Royal Court, published a tweet two weeks ago, in which he alluded to new arrests in Saudi Arabia based on old Snapchat tweets and recordings, which is what actually happened.

Denounce
The "detainees of opinion" account denounced the Saudi authorities' exploitation of the Corona crisis for launching new arrests, and demanded the cessation of what he described as a human rights farce, and the immediate release of all detainees and other detainees of opinion.

On the other hand, the human rights account said that the authorities released Sheikh Abdullah Al-Saad and the imam of his mosque, who was arrested with him, after ten days of detention, which was described as arbitrary.

The Prisoners of Conscience account warned that by April 2020, it will be almost a year since the arbitrary arrest of many activists and journalists, including Abdullah al-Shehri, Reza al-Bouri, Ali al-Saffarah and Fahd Abu al-Khail.

Waves
Since November 2017, the Kingdom has witnessed waves of arrests, initially involving dozens of princes, senior officials, current and former ministers, officials and businessmen at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Later, the Saudi authorities expanded the pursuit campaign, and ordered new arrests that included political and religious elites and symbols in the financial and business world in the Kingdom, and the campaign extended to include more of the crown prince's cousins ​​and their children and families.