Five Saudi reformers, advocating a constitutional monarchy, were arrested on Tuesday by security officers, according to one of the five and a London-based opposition group.
The arrested men were identified as Matruk al-Faleh, Abdullah al-Hamad, Tawfiq al Qassir, Mohammed Said al-Taib and Khalid al-Hamid, most of them academics who were among 116 signatories of a petition in December to the government calling for transforming the kingdom into a constitutional monarchy.
Faleh, a professor of political science at King Fahd University in Riyadh, told AFP by telephone that Hamad, Qassir and himself were brought in the morning to the headquarters of the intelligence services for questioning.
He was unable to provide further details, but a member of his family told AFP later that "they have not heard from Faleh since this morning when he was arrested at the university."
Meanwhile the director of the London-based Saudi Human Rights Center, Abdul Aziz Khamis, told AFP by telephone that Hamid and Taib were "arrested on Tuesday" at King Fahd University and the airport in the western city of Jeddah respectively.