Nadhir Al-Majid

Al-Majid was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison in January 2017 in connection with an opinion piece he wrote in 2011 titled “I protest, therefore I am,”… More

Marwan Almuraisy

Almuraisy was arrested and forcibly disappeared in June 2018. Though he was a prominent figure on social media, his disappearance puzzled observers because he was not involved in political… More

Essam Al-Zamil

Essam Al-Zamil

A well-known economist, Al-Zamil was detained in September 2017 for his writing criticizing Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, and its inflated valuation on the stock market. He reportedly… More

Adel Banaima

Banaima, a lecturer at the University of Umm Al-Qura in Mecca and editor-in-chief of Jusoor Magazine, was arrested and detained without charge in September 2017. Information about his status… More

Abdulrahman Farhana

Farhana, a columnist who wrote on Palestinian and regional politics and Islamist political movements for Al Jazeera and other outlets, was detained in February 2019. Farhana is being held… More

Mohammed Saud Al-Bishr

Al-Bishr, a professor and commentator on politics and religion, was arrested in October 2017. Human rights monitors report that he was arrested for commenting on excessive censorship in media.… More

Sultan Al-Jumairi

Al-Jumairi was arrested in September 2018 in connection with activist comments on Twitter. It is unknown whether he has been formally charged or sentenced. More

Fadhel Al-Manasef

A prominent young human rights defender, Al-Manasef was arrested in October 2011 and in 2014 was sentenced to 15 years in prison on various trumped-up charges, including organizing protests… More

Maha Al-Rafidi Al-Qahtani

In September 2019, Saudi authorities raided Al-Qahtani's home and have held her in arbitrary pretrial detention since. As of January 2020 she was reportedly held in solitary confinement and… More

Writers at Risk Database

Waleed Abu Al-Khair

Al-Khair was the first activist prosecuted under a new Saudi Arabian law that introduced overly broad definitions of terrorism, such that it applies to speech. In June 2014, he… More