Saudi authorities have put an influential Yemeni cleric under house arrest

Saudi authorities placed an influential Yemeni cleric under house arrest in Mecca on Wednesday, according to the Arabic-language "Prisoners of Conscience" Twitter account on Wednesday, which monitors news of political detainees in the kingdom.

A tweet from the account said that Sheikh Abdul Majid Al-Zindani "is now at home under house arrest with an electronic tag on his leg and his mobile phone has been confiscated for a time and is at the place of investigation".

An earlier tweet from the account regarding Zindani’s arrest was deleted after some Twitter accounts reported that the cleric's sons denied that he was detained.

The Prisoners of Conscience account later confirmed that the cleric was indeed under house arrest.

Read also: New investigation reveals shocking extent of torture in Saudi women’s prisons

Hundreds of reformist clerics have previously been jailed in Saudi Arabia, along with liberal and women’s rights activists. They include noted author Salman Al-Awdah, who faces the death penalty, while some clerics have died in prison due to medical neglect.

Abdul Majid Al-Zindani is the founder of the Iman University in Yemen and the Global Authority for Scientific Miracles in the Quran and Sunnah.

He is also one of the leading figures of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and the head of the Shura (Consultative) Council of the Yemeni Islamist Islah (Reform) Party.

He has previously expressed support for the 2015 Saudi intervention in Yemen against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who currently control the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

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