Mohammed Abdullah Al-Otaibi is a Saudi human rights defender and co-founder of the Union for Human Rights who was forcibly deported from Qatar on 28 May 2017 while travelling to Norway where he had been granted refugee status exposing him to immediate arrest upon return by the General Directorate of Investigation. He had fled Saudi Arabia in March 2017 after facing charges including founding an unlicensed association and disseminating statements critical of the authorities referred to the Specialised Criminal Court. Upon arrival in Riyadh he was arrested and held in Al Mabahith prison in Dammam where he was kept incommunicado for over two weeks, denied legal counsel and then held in solitary confinement for three months. He was brought before the Specialised Criminal Court on 12 July 2017 and on 25 January 2018 sentenced to 14 years in prison on politically motivated charges such as forming an unlicensed organisation and spreading chaos solely for his peaceful activism. His appeal was rejected and in December 2020 he received an additional one-year sentence linked to his travel to Qatar which was increased to three years on appeal in April 2021 bringing his total term to 17 years . Reports from 2019 and 2020 documented that he was denied regular family contact, allowed only one visit every 45 days and restricted calls even during Ramadan in violation of the UN Mandela Rules. In January 2021 he staged a hunger strike for three weeks demanding transfer to a prison near his family in Jeddah and proper medical care particularly for hypertension, however reliable reports indicate that his requests were never granted and he remains detained in Al Mabahith prison in Dammam under harsh conditions.