Growing up, Fawzia al-Otaibi and her two sisters, Manahel and Maryam, yearned for a different life. Coming from a conservative family and going to school in Saudi Arabia, they chafed against the rules and restrictions imposed on them. When given the chance they would challenge them, to the irritation of teachers who said they were rebellious and disruptive.

When social media arrived in the kingdom, they used it to hit out at laws such as male guardianship, which meant adult women had to have the permission of a male guardian to travel, work or marry. First Maryam was arrested and then Fawzia, but Manahel’s posts about the authorities’ actions led to their release.

Tom Levitt, the Guardian’s rights and freedom commissioning editor, tells Michael Safi how, even while Saudi Arabia was promoting the vision of an increasingly open society where women’s rights were growing, and even the guardianship laws loosening, the sisters continued to be arrested. After Fawzia fled the country, she thought she was safe. But her years of activism had angered the authorities and what happened next shattered the sisters’ lives.

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