UN human rights expert calls on Saudi Arabia to free women activists

A United Nations special rapporteur has called on the member states of the UN Human Rights Council to pressure Saudi Arabia to free women activists, four months before the Arab kingdom holds the 2020 G20 Riyadh summit. Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, made the call during a speech to the council in Geneva on Thursday. The Saudi regime should release “prisoners of conscience, women, human rights defenders that are currently in prison for demanding the right to drive,” she said. Saudi authorities put at least a dozen prominent women’s activists behind bars in 2018 as...