JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia has arrested over 160 activists since February, Human Rights Watch said in a report this week, as the absolute monarchy attempts to insulate itself from the mass uprisings sweeping the Arab world.
A report by the U.S.-based rights group called for the Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef to immediately release what it called peaceful dissidents, and said their arrests violated international human rights law.

Human Rights Watch researcher, Christoph Wilcke, criticized what he said was the silence of the United States and European Union on the arrest of peaceful dissidents.
“Silence when more than 160 peaceful dissidents are locked up should not be an option for Brussels or Washington … As the list of Saudi political prisoners grows longer, the silence of the U.S. and the EU becomes more deafening,” Wilcke said.

The Sunni Muslim monarchy of Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter and major U.S. ally, does not tolerate any form of dissent. It has not seen the kind of recent mass uprisings other countries in the region have.
But minority Shiite Muslims in the oil-producing Eastern Province have staged smaller demonstrations over the past few months.
Their call for the release of priso

ners as well as an end to religious discrimination has led to the arrest of some activists by the Saudi authorities.
Saudi authorities arrested Shiite Muslim intellectual Al-Saeed al-Majid Sunday, two days after protests in the Eastern Province.