A Brief Look at Human Rights Violations: (part 13) United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a dark police state that regularly abuses human rights and represses its citizens. The UAE targets political opponents and activists, and criminalizes fundamental freedoms and basic human rights. In this article we take a look at some news and reports on human rights violations in UAE from Mid-October to November 2019.

1- International Center for Justice and Human Rights released a report on human rights groups' demand for World Tolerance Summit speakers to boycott the summit.
Some human rights organizations called on all participants and speakers at the World Tolerance Summit took place in Dubai on November 13 and 14 to withdraw from the event, which promotes a misleading image of the United Arab Emirates as a model of tolerance and openness. This is the second World Tolerance Summit, initiated in 2018 to “strengthen the UAE’s position as a model of co-existence and cultural tolerance around the world.”
“Since the Arab Spring in 2011, the Emirati government has increased its brutal clampdown on fundamental human rights and freedoms. The authorities have prosecuted and imprisoned political opponents, human rights defenders, journalists and critics, and systematically silenced peaceful dissenting voices, to such an extent that, today, freedom of speech and civic space are virtually nonexistent in the country.” “we also wish to inform you that in October 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution, calling on the UAE to, among other things, stop all forms of harassment and immediately lift the travel ban against human rights defenders, and urging the authorities to “guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in the UAE are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities, both inside and outside the country, without fear of reprisals”. the statement continued.

2- According to the International Centre for Justice and Human Rights, prominent lawyer Mohammad Al-Mansouri has been denied contact with his family and the outside world for over a year. On 16 July 2012, security forces arrested Dr. al-Mansoori as part of their broader campaign against the Emirati reform movement. On 2 July 2013, the Federal Supreme Court of Abu Dhabi convicted Dr. al-Mansoori in a mass trial of 93 other democratic activists, known together as the “UAE 94.” He was sentenced to a ten-year prison term.
Al-Mansoori experienced severe ill-treatment and poor living conditions. Prison officials have allegedly forced Dr. al-Mansoori to stay in solitary confinement for extended periods of time. UAE prison authorities frequently deprive prisoners of conscience of family visits for prolonged periods of time which has a great psychological impact on both the detainees and their relatives.

3- Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and over 135 other organizations called on UAE officials to free the unjustly imprisoned prominent human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor ahead of his 50th birthday on October 22, 2019.
Human Rights Watch is gravely concerned for the health of Mansoor. “As the UAE brazenly promotes itself as a tolerant and rights-respecting state, Ahmed Mansoor, the man who stood up for so many people unjustly imprisoned before him, stands to mark his 50th birthday in solitary confinement in deplorable conditions,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
UAE security forces arrested Mansoor on March 20, 2017. For more than a year, he had no access to a lawyer and only very limited visits with family. Following a closed trial, Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May 2018 for insulting the “status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols,” including its leaders, based on his peaceful calls for reform. On December 31, 2018, the Federal Supreme Court, the country’s court of last resort in state security cases, upheld his sentence, quashing his final chance at early release.

4- International Center for Justice and Human Rights called on UAE authorities to release prisoner of conscience Mansoor Al-Ahmadi who has completed his 7-year prison sentence at Al-Razeen prison. Arrested in October 2012, Al-Ahmadi was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment within the mass unfair trial of the UAE 94.
In its opinion issued in November 2013, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had stated that the deprivation of liberty of the Mansoor Al-Ahmadi and 60 other defendants is a form of arbitrary detention.
Mansoor Al-Ahmadi should have been set free, however, no information has been issued so far on his release. The International Centre for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR) is concerned that the UAE refused to liberate him despite the end of his term, like this was done before with other prisoners.
The absence of strict limitation to the administrative detention has led to the continuous imprisonment of detainees beyond their jail terms without legal remedy. While eight detainees had been detained beyond their prison terms – Osama Al-Najjar, Abdullah Al-Helou, Badr Al-Bahri, Ahmed Al-Mulla, Saeed Al-Burimi, Abdul Wahed Al-Badi, Othman Al-Shehhi and Khalifa Rabiaa –, Abdullah Al-Hajri, Imran Al-Radwan Al-Harthy and Mahmoud Al-Hosani added to the list in July 2019 after they completed their sentence. All three men have been kept in custody at Al-Razeen without legal procedure.

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