Aayat Alqormozi is a Bahraini poet who was arrested and tortured for reading her work during the 2011 Arab Spring protests in Bahrain. The selections she read called for social justice and equal rights for Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims.Following the recitation of her poem during a protest at Pearl Square, Alqormozi was expelled from university and imprisoned. Soon after, she became a symbol of peaceful defiance against the al-Khalifa regime. She was indicted for “insulting the King and encouraging hatred of the ruling regime” and sentenced to a year in jail. However, following public outcry, Alqormozi was released the next month and placed under house arrest. While in prison, she was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement but went on to make public statements about torture immediately after her release. Alqormozi received the Student Peace Prize in 2015.