The news from Saudi Arabia is deeply dismaying. Government authorities have arrested seven women and three men—all of them well-known advocates for women’s rights—and are holding them in secret locations without access to counsel. The 10 were arrested on May 15 in Riyadh on charges of—according to one Saudi newspaper—“using human rights as a pretext to violate the country’s systems.”

Friends of individual rights had hoped for better from the Saudi Arabia of Mohammed bin Salman. The new crown prince—MbS, as he’s known—has held his position for slightly less than a year, but all indications are that it’s he who holds the power of the monarchy rather than his aged father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz.