Human Rights Watch (HRW) interpreted the arrests as being aimed at frightening the activists, stating, "The message is clear that anyone expressing skepticism about the crown prince's [human] rights agenda faces time in jail."[1] The arrested campaigners were severely criticised in semi-official media as "traitors".[2] Social anthropologist Madawi al-Rasheed interpreted the May arrests as being part of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's aim to keep all the credit for allowing women to drive starting from 24 June 2018.[3] Rothna Begum of HRW said that since the arrests and the public smearing of the activists' reputations, women's Twitter activity was quiet.[4]