A brief look at human rights violations: (part 6) United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) arbitrarily detains and in some cases forcibly disappears individuals who criticize the authorities. The UAE plays a leading role in the Saudi-led coalition which has carried out scores of unlawful attacks in Yemen, some likely war crimes.
In this report we take a look at some human rights abuses committed by UAE from July till August.

1- On the fifth anniversary of the start of the mass “UAE 94” trial that imprisoned dozens of government critics and reform activists, the Emirati Center for Human Rights called on the UAE expresses its full solidarity with all those imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association following this grossly unfair trial, as well as those who remain detained or imprisoned for publicizing concerns about it.
The trial failed to meet international fair trial standards and was widely condemned by human rights organizations and UN bodies, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The court failed to take steps to investigate, or order a prompt, independent, impartial and thorough investigation of the defendants' claims that State Security interrogators had forced them, under torture or other ill-treatment, to make false “confessions” incriminating themselves and others during months when they were held incommunicado in secret locations and without access to lawyers or the outside world. The defendants were also denied a right of appeal to a higher tribunal.

2- According to a report by Amnesty International on Yemen on July 12th, Yemeni security forces that are backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as UAE troops operating in southern Yemen have been carrying out hundreds of arbitrary arrests and committing serious violations, including enforced disappearance and torture and other ill-treatment amounting to war crimes.
Since joining the conflict in March 2015, the UAE has created, trained, equipped and financed various local security forces known as the Security Belt and Elite Forces. It has also built alliances with Yemeni security officials, bypassing their leadership in the Yemeni government.
Amnesty International’s report documents the widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment in Yemeni and Emirati facilities. Current and former detainees and families gave horrific accounts of abuse including beatings, use of electric shocks and sexual violence. “The UAE, operating in shadowy conditions in southern Yemen, appears to have created a parallel security structure outside the law, where egregious violations continue to go unchecked,” said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International. “This vacuum of accountability makes it even harder for families to challenge the lawfulness of detentions. Even after Yemeni prosecutors have tried to assert their control over some prisons, UAE forces have ignored or severely delayed their release orders on several occasions.”

3- The Association for victims of UAE, a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization has launched a campaign to bring awareness to the issue of systematic torture in the United Arab Emirates. The organization claimed that while the United Arab Emirates strives to build an image of a modern and liberal state, human rights violations in the country continue to be ignored or denied by the authorities. Many national and foreign citizens, activists, political opponents and human rights defenders are arbitrarily arrested and most of the time held incommunicado and subjected to unfair trials based on confessions extracted under torture.
Torture is practiced with total impunity and with the knowledge of the highest state leaders who not only close their eyes but encourage it directly. Many prisoners testify to being held incommunicado, threatened with execution, deprived of sleep and food, humiliated, beaten, hung from the ceiling, electrocuted, raped and forced to witness the torture of fellow prisoners, sometimes in the presence of senior officers or political leaders.

4- According to the Emirati Center for Human Rights, Mothers of detainees held in secret prison run by the United Arab Emirates in Yemen carried out a protest condemning and demanding the release of their sons and revealing their unknown condition. They also denounced the procrastination of officials in revealing the fate of the disappeared and bringing them to trial.

5- The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt imposed a boycott on Qatar in June 2017, severing diplomatic and transport ties and accusing it of supporting terrorism, which it denies. According to Qatar, which filed the suit in June, the UAE has as part of the boycott expelled thousands of Qataris, blocked transport and closed down the offices of the Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel.
Finally, The International Court of Justice, the highest U.N. court, found that the United Arab Emirates acted against the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) when it ordered all Qatari citizens to leave the country within fourteen days in June of 2017. ICJ ordered the UAE to immediately allow Qatari families to reunite.

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