Nourah al-Qahtani was arrested on July 4, 2021, by agents of the Presidency of State Security (SSP). Prior to her arrest, al-Qahtani had been active on Twitter through two anonymous accounts, through which she advocated for human rights in Saudi Arabia, called for the release of political detainees and criticised human rights abuses committed by the Saudi authorities.

On November 21, 2021, Saad Almadi flew to Saudi Arabia to visit his family. After landing at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, he disappeared. Though his family later informally learned that he had been arrested, they did not obtain further official information on his fate and whereabouts. It was only four months later, in late March 2022, that the U.S.

On January 15, 2021, Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi PhD student at the University of Leeds (UK) who was visiting her family in Saudi Arabia during the winter holiday, was called in for questioning by the Saudi Presidency of State Security in Dammam. She was then arbitrarily arrested, detained and subjected to pre-trial detention for a period of 285 days before being brought to court.  Prior to her arrest, she had been vocal on Twitter in her support for human rights and women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia.

Shaima Albugamy is a Saudi national who ran away from her family house, located in the village of Turbah in the province of Makkah, on October 21, 2021. Albugamy was being abused by her father and brothers, and for multiple years, was subjected to physical violence. Her family also prevented her from going to school on different occasions, often forcibly confining her to the family house. She submitted multiple complaints to the authorities about this matter, but to no avail.

In the context of the Arab Spring of 2011, demonstrations emerged in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia calling for the respect of human rights, political participation, the release of political prisoners, and an end to anti-Shi’a discrimination, while also expressing solidarity with demonstrators in the neighbouring country of Bahrain. Aged 10, Murtaja Qureiris, a resident of the Eastern Province, attended some of the rallies held in Qatif with members of his family. During the period of repression that followed, his brother was killed by security forces.