​​Dr Hala Al‑Dosari, Saudi Arabian women’s human rights defender, academic and writer, is renowned for her advocacy against the Kingdom’s deeply entrenched discrimination towards women and girls, including the male guardianship system, gender‑based violence and restrictions on freedom of expression. She co‑led the October 26 driving campaign in 2013, where Saudi women drove publicly to protest the ban on women driving, inspiring subsequent online advocacy efforts via campaigns such as those challenging the guardianship laws. After leaving Saudi Arabia around 2014 for fear of arrest under antiterrorism and cybercrime laws targeting peaceful activism, she has since held fellowships at Johns Hopkins University, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and served as visiting or resident scholar in institutions including NYU and the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. She directs an online women’s rights advocacy project and contributes writings to international media such as The Guardian, Foreign Policy and Al Jazeera English. In recognition of her activism, she was awarded Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award in 2018 and has continued to highlight the criminalisation of peaceful dissent, naming social media activism as terrorism by the Saudi state.