*RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has detained a prominent Islamist scholar, activistssaid Thursday, in a widening crackdown on dissent in the kingdom.*

Rights campaigners and online activists said Sheikh Safar al-Hawali, aSunni Islamist scholar and leading figure in Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Sahwareformist movement, had been taken into custody.

They did not give further details about the case of the scholar, who haspushed a line of anti-Americanism and Islamic rule.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, named heir to the throne in June2017, has spearheaded a string of reforms” over the past year aimed atimproving his “country’s image and economy”.

The changes have coincided with a widening crackdown on all forms ofopposition.

Hawali was jailed in the 1990s for opposing his country’s ties to US troopsleading a military operation to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

In 1993, he was banned from public speaking and dismissed from his academicposts along with prominent cleric Sheikh Salman al-Awda.