Loujain al-Hathloul ( ar, لجين الهذلول ''Lujjayn al-Hadhlūl''; born 31 July 1989) is a Saudi

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

activist, a

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figure, and

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...

. She is a graduate of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...

. Al-Hathloul has been arrested and released on several occasions for defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia and was arrested in May 2018, with several prominent women's rights activists, on the charge of "attempting to destabilise the kingdom" after being effectively kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). , her husband, Saudi stand-up comedian Fahad al-Butairi, had also been forcefully returned from Jordan to the Kingdom and was under arrest. Al-Hathloul was ranked third in the list of "Top 100 Most Powerful Arab Women 2015". In March 2019,

PEN America PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922 and headquartered in New York City, is a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of litera ...

announced that Nouf Abdulaziz, al-Hathloul, and

Eman al-Nafjan Eman al-Nafjan is a Saudi Arabian blogger and women's rights activist. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five other women's rights activists in what Human Rights Watch interpreted as an attemp ...

would receive the 2019 PEN America/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. Al-Hathloul was named one of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine's "100 Most Influential People of 2019". Al-Hathloul was nominated for the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...

in 2019 and 2020. In April 2021, she was announced as the winner of the 2020

Václav Havel Human Rights Prize The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize is an annual €60,000 award which honours "outstanding" civil society action in defence of human rights, in Europe and beyond. Individuals, non-governmental organisations and institutions working to defend human ...

. She was released from prison on 10 February 2021, but lives under a travel ban.

Women's rights activism (2014–2017)

Al-Hathloul is known both for her role in the

women to drive movement Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world in which women were forbidden from driving motor vehicles. The Women to Drive Movement ( ''qiyāda al-marʾa fī as-Suʿūdiyya'') was a campaign by Saudi women, whom the government ...

and in opposing the Saudi male guardianship system. On 1 December 2014, she was arrested and detained for 73 days after an attempt to cross the border in her car from the UAE to Saudi Arabia, on charges related to defying the female driving ban in the kingdom. She has a UAE licence but the Saudi police still arrested her. Al-Hathloul attempted to stand in Saudi local elections in December 2015, the first vote in Saudi Arabia to include women, but was barred. In September 2016, along with 14,000 others, al-Hathloul signed a petition to King Salman asking for the male guardianship system to be abolished. On 4 June 2017, she was arrested and detained at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. The reason for the arrest was not officially disclosed, although Amnesty International believed it was for her human rights activism, and al-Hathloul was not allowed access to a lawyer or any contact with her family.

2018–2020 detention and torture

Loujain Al-Hathloul was

kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...

from UAE in March 2018 and deported to Saudi Arabia, where she was arrested for a few days and then put under a travel ban. Al-Hathloul was detained again on the eve of 15 May 2018, along with

, Aisha al-Mana,

Aziza al-Yousef Aziza al-Yousef is a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist and academic. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five others. As of November, 2018, she was apparently being held in the Dhahban Centr ...

Madeha al-Ajroush Madeha al-Ajroush is a Saudi Arabian women's rights activist, psychologist and photographer. She was detained by Saudi authorities in May 2018 along with Loujain al-Hathloul and five others. Women's rights activism In 1990, al-Ajroush took p ...

and some men involved in campaigning for women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

interpreted the purpose of the arrests as frightening "anyone expressing skepticism about the crown prince's rights agenda". In June 2018, women were granted the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, while al-Hathloul remained under arrest. According to

ALQST ALQST or Al Qst ( ar, منظمة القسط) is a human rights organisation that documents and promotes human rights in Saudi Arabia, with a team in Saudi Arabia that researches cases and a team in London that publishes reports and news. Aims an ...

and Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia tortured al-Hathloul and several other women detained for their women's rights activities.

Torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...

techniques, which included being beaten on their feet, given electric shocks, and whipped, were used in a torture location called "the hotel" or "the officer's guesthouse". According to Loujain al-Hathloul's sister Alia (who lives in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium), torture techniques used specifically against Loujain also included beating, electric shocks and

waterboarding Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboard ...

, and the torture occurred between May and August 2018. Loujain al-Hathloul's parents stated that Loujain's "thighs were blackened by bruises" when they visited and that Loujain "was shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold her grip, to walk or sit normally" during their visit. According to Alia al-Hathloul, Saud al-Qahtani visited al-Hathloul during her torture, laughing at her, threatening to rape and kill her and to dispose of her body in the sewage system, and he tortured her "all night during Ramadan". Alia al-Hathloul stated that she had expected that under Saudi norms about women, her sister would not have been tortured. In December 2018, al-Hathloul was in jail with her fellow activists at

Dhahban Central Prison Dhahban Central Prison ( ar, سجن المباحث العامة بذهبان), also known as Dhahban Prison, is a maximum security prison facility located near Dahaban, Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia. It was built in 2015 as part of a renovation of the ...

. According to her brother Walid al-Hathloul (who lives in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada), al-Hathloul was by February 2019 held in al-Ha'ir Prison. On 1 March 2019, the office of Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor announced that the preliminary investigation had been completed and they would be preparing to try al-Hathloul and other activists in court for undermining state security. On 13 March 2019, the trial began, although the charges were not specified and reporters and diplomats were barred from attending. In April 2019, a hearing on her case was postponed without a reason being given. In May 2020, her trial was indefinitely postponed because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, which has raised concerns over her health inside the Saudi prison. On 11 August 2020, her other sister Lina al-Hathloul (a

-nominated campaigner), expressed fear about the possibility of the activist being tortured again in the Saudi prison, as she has not been heard from for over 60 days. Loujain al-Hathloul had been held in incommunicado detention for three months. When she learned that other detainees were allowed to call their families, she went on a six-day hunger strike to demand the same. She was then allowed to meet her parents. Saudi Arabia has restricted many prominent human rights activists, clerics, and royal family members from contacting their family or lawyer, raising concern over their safety and wellbeing. On 15 September 2020, around 30 countries called on Saudi Arabia to release jailed women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul and four other women in detention who campaigned for women to drive. On 8 October 2020, the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

called for Saudi Arabia to release all the

human rights activists A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing camp ...

, particularly the campaigners for the

Women to drive movement Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world in which women were forbidden from driving motor vehicles. The Women to Drive Movement ( ''qiyāda al-marʾa fī as-Suʿūdiyya'') was a campaign by Saudi women, whom the government ...

, including Loujain al-Hathloul, in a resolution passed against the Kingdom's human rights records. Highlighting the situation of these dissidents and migrants in the country's detention centers, the

MEPs A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

also urged the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

states to cut down their representation at Saudi's G20 Summit. At the end of October 2020, Loujain al-Hathloul started a hunger strike. According to Hathloul's sisters, Lina and Alia, who broke the news on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, the activist started her hunger strike on 26 October 2020 against the al-Hair prison administration, demanding regular contact with her family and siblings. On 10 November 2020, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. said that Saudi Arabia was considering to release women rights activist Loujain Al-Hatloul, ahead of its hosting of the

G20 The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigatio ...

summit in November. The decision was considered after the international political pressure to release her, as she was on a weeks-long hunger strike. On 25 November 2020, after the Riyadh G20 summit was concluded, Loujain al-Hathloul was transferred to a special court for terrorism and national security crimes. Her sister, Lina al-Hathloul, feared that Loujain was being pressured into giving false confessions, which could be used against her during the trial. On 29 November 2020, seven European envoys released a joint statement condemning the continued detention of five women's rights activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul, whose case was referred to a special court for terrorism-related offences. The envoys demanded the release of Hathloul, who had been in jail since May 2018 after a sweep targeted prominent critics of the kingdom's former law barring women from driving. On 28 December 2020, al-Hathloul was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison. On 10 February 2021, al-Hathloul's sister announced on Twitter that she had been released from prison. On 10 March 2021, Al-Hathloul's sister said that a Riyadh court upheld the sentencing of Loujain. She is subject to many restrictions including a five-year travel ban. In 2021, she gave her iPhone to the Canadian

Citizen Lab The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness ...

for forensic examination after it was hacked, leading to the discovery of spyware by the Israeli

NSO group NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance ...

. Technical information uncovered by Bill Marczak's team at the lab allowed Apple to warn thousands of its users, including U.S. State Department employees in Uganda. Researchers also discovered that spyware from QuaDream, another Israeli vendor, took advantage of the same " zero-click" vulnerability in iPhones. In December 2021, al-Hathloul announced she and the Electronic Frontier Foundation would be suing three former American intelligence officers, Marc Baier, Ryan Adams, and Daniel Gericke, accusing the officers of hacking her communications devices, leading to her kidnapping in the UAE and deportation to Saudi Arabia. The three officers had already admitted to providing the UAE with hacking services and equipment in a separate case.

Recognition

She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2017. Al-Hathloul was ranked third in the "Top 100 Most Powerful Arab Women 2015" list. In March 2019,