The arrested Saudi activist, Loujain Al-Hathloul, has started a hunger strike inside her prison to demand that she be allowed to communicate regularly with her family, her sister announced Tuesday.

Loujain Al-Hathloul has become a symbol of the struggle for women's rights in Saudi Arabia since her 2018 arrest.

The younger sister of the Saudi detainee wrote in English on Twitter that Loujain told her parents that she was "exhausted because of her ill-treatment and being denied hearing the voices of her family."

"I told them that she will start a hunger strike from yesterday evening (Monday) until she is allowed to contact them on a regular basis," she said.

Her older sister Alia wrote, "Today, Monday, October 26, 2020, at 7 pm Riyadh time, my sister Loujain announced a hunger strike due to the deprivation of the administration of al-Ha'ir prison of her right to contact the family."

Saudi authorities did not immediately issue any comment.

In August Al-Hathloul began a hunger strike for about a week after being prevented for months from contacting or meeting her family members, according to what her family revealed.

She stopped her first hunger strike after her parents were allowed to visit her in prison, according to her family.

Al-Hathloul, 31, was arrested with about ten activists in May 2018, a few weeks before women were allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia.

Some of them were released on parole, while al-Hathloul and others continued to be held on vague charges that include communicating with foreign media outlets, diplomats and human rights organizations.

Government-affiliated media outlets accuse Al-Hathloul and other female activists of "treason," while her family says that during her arrest, she was subjected to sexual harassment and torture, notably by electrocution and waterboarding.

Al-Hathloul accused the former adviser of the Saudi royal court, Saud Al-Qahtani, of threatening to rape and kill her, according to her family.

The Saudi authorities vehemently denied these accusations.

The arrest of human rights activists in Saudi Arabia shed light on the human rights file in the Kingdom, which has also faced a wave of global criticism over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country's consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

In October, European representatives approved a wide-ranging recommendation calling on the European Union to reduce its representation at the upcoming G20 summit in Riyadh, against a backdrop of fears of human rights violations.