Nayef al-Hindas

Blogger Naif al-Hindas was one of several Saudi journalists arrested in April 2019. Like several of the others, he had not been recently active in journalism. No charges have been disclosed and we could not determine the reason for his arrest. Al-Hindas was arrested April 4 or 5, 2019, according to the Saudi-focused human rights organization Al-Qst and the Beirut-based rights organization Gulf Center for Human Rights. CPJ could not determine where al-Hindas was arrested, or where he was initially held. Al-Hindas wrote about philosophy, film, feminism, and other cultural and political topics, according to a CPJ review of his contributions to the Saudi culture blogs Arab Renewal and Saqya, and his personal blog. CPJ was unable to find any of his writing after a July 2018 post on his blog. His arrest was part of a wave of detentions in Saudi Arabia in spring 2019 targeting journalists and bloggers who had written about a range of cultural, economic, political, and social issues and who in many cases had not been active for years.