Later in al-Ahmed's career, in mid-May 2012, his brother Kamel Abbas al-Ahmed was arrested in Saudi Arabia. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) believed that Ali al-Ahmed's activities as an expatriate Saudi dissident were part of the reason for Kamel al-Ahmed's arrest and that the arrest was part of a "security campaign launched by the [Saudi Arabian] government" against the 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests.