Saudi Arabia frees jailed 'tweeter' but will continue interrogation

A prominent human rights lawyer who was arrested by Saudi police along with her two-year-old daughter has been freed from prison after her arrest on Tuesday.

Samar Badawi was released from jail on Wednesday,  Amnesty International confirmed, but she will continue to be interrogated by Riyadh security.

Badawi was questioned at a Jeddah police station for four hours before being transferred to a Saudi jail.

"She's OK," Human Rights Watch's Adam Coogle told AFP.

"Technically she was bailed out in the morning. Then she had to go for mandatory questioning," he said, adding she had since been released.

Samar is the sister of Raif Badawi who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ten years in jail for a blog post.

Samar Badawi is also the ex-wife of her brother's lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, a rights activist who himself is serving a 15-year prison sentence and has campaigned for his release.

She was said to have been arrested as Saudi authorities suspected Badawi of running Waleed's Twitter account and remains under investigation.

HRW said she was questioned on Tuesday "about her human rights activism generally and whether she controls al-Khair's Twitter account. Badawi denied that she controls the account."

Raif Badawi's wife, Ensaf Haidar, earlier posted on Twitter that her sister-in-law was detained for allegedly managing Khair's account.

A source with knowledge of Samar Badawi's activities said she had stopped tweeting from her own account about a month ago.

Raif Badawi has been one of the most high-profile victims of Riyadh's clampdown on activists in the country.

In 2012, he was arrested for a post on the Saudi Liberal Network website - started by Badawi - which campaigned for reforms in the conservative kingdom.

After one post critical of Saudi Arabia's religious police, he was accused of insulting Islam using electronic channels and apostasy - the latter charge carrying the death sentence.

A judge dropped the charge of apostasy but sentenced Badawi to 1,000 lashes and jail.

Badawi went on hunger strike last month, and his health was said to be deteriorating.