Saudi Arabia has arrested eight people, including two U.S.-Saudi citizens, VOA news reports.
The Associated Press reports that the detainees include a pregnant woman and seven men.
All the detainees have been supportive of rights for women who live in the kingdom.
ALQST, a London-based human rights group, says all those arrested were “writers and social media bloggers previously engaged in public discourse on reforms.”
Most of the detainees were arrested Thursday.
Badr al-Ibrahim, a writer and physician is one of the two U.S.-Saudi nationals arrested.
Salah al-Haidar is the other American detainee. He is the son of Aziza al-Yousef, an activist already in prison with 10 other women who have been imprisoned for nearly a year and have allegedly been subjected to torture and sexual abuse.
The arrests represent the first known crackdown on the kingdom’s critics since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.