Issa Al-Nukhaifi is a human rights defender from Saudi Arabia. He is a community social activist who protested against the government’s policy of displacing families from the Saudi-Yemeni borders for security measures without adequate compensation. On 18 December 2016, he was arrested by security forces in the Jizan region after having published a tweet criticising his judicial summons. On 28 February 2018, the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) sentenced Al-Nukhaifi to six years in prison, to be followed by another six years of travel ban after his release, in addition to preventing him from writing or using social media. He was charged with “insulting” the authorities and inciting public opinion against the rulers, as well as being in contact with suspected opposition figures. He was charged under the Anti-Cyber Crimes Law in connection with opinions he expressed online, including his rejection of the war in Yemen and his support for the hashtag of the Popular Parliament. On 24 October 2022, he was subjected to enforced disappearance and held incommunicado well past the end of his sentence, which was meant to end on 18 December 2022. In his time in prison, he has engaged in several hunger strikes to protest against the ill-treatment he has received. He served a previous sentence of three years which ended in April 2016, the same year he was re-arrested. Issa Al-Nukhaifi was finally released in January 2025 after over eight years of arbitrary detention. However, he remains under a six-year travel ban that continues to restrict his freedom.