[7] On 9 March 2013, al-Qahtani was sentenced to ten years in prison followed by a ten-year travel ban, ostensibly for "co-founding an unlicensed civil association".

[8] He has carried out several hunger strikes to protest Saudi prison conditions endured during his politically motivated incarceration.

[2] Al-Qahtani was charged in a Saudi court on 18 June 2012 on 11 charges related to his human rights activism, including: setting up an unlicensed organisation, 'breaking allegiance to the ruler', accusing the judiciary of allowing torture and accepting confessions made under duress, describing the Saudi Arabian authorities as a police state, inciting public opinion by accusing authorities of human rights violations, and turning international organizations against the Kingdom.

[7] Mohammad al-Qahtani's trial started on 1 September 2012 with nine charges, including "setting up an unlicensed organisation and breaking allegiance to the king".

Text and photo reports of the trial were published live on the social networking services Twitter and Facebook,[16] which was described by the Sebastian Usher of the BBC as "a measure of transparency that is unusual in Saudi Arabia".

[17] Amnesty International described the charges as "part of a series of recent trials aimed at silencing human rights activists" in Saudi Arabia.

The statement was made in response to a report that 30 Saudi women recruited through an employment agency had taken on jobs as domestic workers.

[20] In April 2011, al-Qahtani stated in relation to the Saudi-led Peninsula Shield Force intervention in the Bahraini uprising: Unfortunately, they are throwing their power, their authority and their leverage to maintain the status quo, and I don't think it's going to survive in the future.

He suggested that the families of political prisoners would be more motivated to carry out street protests, especially if women participated, compared to "liberals".

[20] During the Arab Spring events of early 2011, al-Qahtani received telephone calls from political prisoners' families, prior to a 5 February 2011 protest in front of the Ministry of Interior in Riyadh[22] by 50 women.

"[20] In June 2012, after being charged in court for his human rights activities,[3][7] al-Qahtani stated: The Saudi regime would soon lose its grip, and things would spin out of control.