inside United Arab Emirates

4-20-18   After being held arbitrarily for over a year in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer, award-winning Emirati human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor has finally been brought to trialin the UAE.

  An eerie silence, however, hangs over proceedings. In typical Kafkaesque fashion, details are scant and information sketchy.  It is not clear what charges he faces, which court is hearing his case, or whether he has access to legal counsel. 

  This state-sanctioned blackout has been pervasive throughout Mansoor's detention.  On the day following his arrest in March of last year, UAE state media said that he had been detained for using his social media account to "publish false information that damages the country’s reputation" and to "spread hatred and sectarianism". 

For example, Nasser bin Ghaith, serving a 10-year sentence for tweets,  was disappeared for months before trial; Tayseer al-Najjar, sentenced to three years for cybercrimes, was held for more than a year without access to a lawyer; Mohammed al-Roken was disappeared without explanation for eight months before receiving a 10-year sentence alongside 69 other government critics in 2013.  This list goes on. 

  Since Mansoor's arrest however this institutionalized silence has also engulfed the last vestiges of Emirati civil society.  Over the last year there has been something of an information blackout from within the country on the issue of human rights.  The reasons for this are clear.  Prior to his arrest last year, Mansoor was quite literally the last person openly speaking out about the topic in the UAE.    https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/anyone-who-would-have-spoken-ahmed-mansoor-has-been-silenced-2045320633

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[File: Nikhil Monteiro/Reuters]

  Prominent Emirati rights activist Ahmed Mansoor has filed a Supreme Court appeal in a bid to overturn a 10-year prison sentence handed to him earlier this year over several Twitter posts.

  Mansoor was sentenced in May by Abu Dhabi's Federal Appeals Court for "defaming the UAE through social media channels".  A father of four, Mansoor was also fined one million dirhams ($270,000) for insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols, including its leaders.  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/uae-rights-activist-ahmed-mansoor-appeals-10-year-sentence-181001193856134.html

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3-29-17   UBAI (Reuters) - Rights group Amnesty International said a court in the United Arab Emirates had sentenced a dissident professor to 10 years in prison for online activism on Wednesday, calling the move a violation of free speech.  State news agency WAM reported that an appeals court in the capital Abu Dhabi had sentenced an Emirati national, referred to only by the initials N.A.G., for social media activity.  It quoted the court as saying the sentence was for “communicating with secret organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, by creating accounts on social media and publishing photos and articles that are offensive to the state’s symbols and values, its internal and foreign policies and its relations with an Arab state”.  Amnesty International identified the sentenced man as prominent dissident

Nasser bin Ghaith.   https://www.reuters.com/article/us-emirates-court-idUSKBN1702W0

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3-6-2013   A

strange trial has opened in Abu Dhabi.  For most of the past seven months,up to 70 of the 94 activists accused of plotting to overthrow the government of the United Arab Emirates have been held in secret detention.

It was only after their families threatened a sit-in that their relatives were brought to the court blindfolded, some showing obvious signs of torture, malnutrition and mistreatment.  Some pleaded with their jailers to "give them the tablets".  All were terrified to speak.

The evidence against them is also a mystery.  The state prosecutor's file, which was only sent to the court a few days before the trial began, relies heavily on the forced confessions of two of the accused.  On the first day one of them, Ahmed Ghaith al-Suwaidi, had a dramatic change of heart. Denying the charges,he pleaded with the court to protect his family:  "I know that what I am going to say may cost me my life, but I deny the charges and I ask the court to protect my life and the life of my family," he said, according to witnesses. 

 The UAE, often described as one of the Gulf's most stable states, is acutely sensitive to its international image as a modern, advanced state.  It acceded to the UN convention against torture in July last year but refuses to allow the UN committee to investigate individual allegations of torture.   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae-trial-94-activists

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3-30-12   Dr. Al-Zaabie requested the UAE Security Forces to present an arrest warrant that authorizes the arrest and detention of Mr. Suwaidi, which they did not have.

Dr. Al-Zaabie was charged with obstruction of the law for asking the security forces to follow the law of the land.  After two and a half hours during which the two human rights defenders refused to comply with the arrest without seeing a judicial warrant, both were arrested and taken into police custody.

Last year the authorities in UAE issued a decree revoking the nationality of seven human rights defenders, Sheikh Mohammad Abdul Razak Al-Sediq, Dr. Ali Hussain Al-Hammadi, Dr. Shahin Abdullah Al-Haosni, Mr. Hussein Munif Al-Jabri, Mr. Hassan Munif Al-Jabri, Mr. Ibrahim Hassan Al-Marzouqi, and also Mr. Ahmed Ghaith Al-Suwaidi.

The seven human rights defenders are currently being deprived of their basic human rights as a result of their citizenship being revoked. They have been denied the right to work and to earn a livelihood as well as the right to have legal status. ...The Gulf Centre for Human Rights  believes that the arrest of human rights defenders,  

Mr. Ahmed Ghaith Al-Suwaidi and Dr. Ahmed Yousef Al-Zaabi, is related to their legitimate human rights work, in particular their repeated calls for reforms in UAE.   https://www.gc4hr.org/news/view/104
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11-21-18  A United Arab Emirates court on Wednesday sentenced British student

Matthew Hedges to life in jail after convicting him of spying.  A spokesperson for the British academic’s family said Hedges was sentenced Wednesday after a hearing that “lasted less than five minutes”.  His lawyer was not present for the hearing, the spokesman added. 

  Hedges, a 31-year-old PhD student at Durham University, has been held in the UAE since May 5, when he was arrested at Dubai airport after a two-week research visit.  He was working on his doctoral thesis on the UAE's foreign and internal security policies after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.  "Matthew is innocent," she said. "The Foreign Office know this and have made it clear to the UAE authorities that Matthew is not a spy for them."    https://www.france24.com/en/20181121-uae-uk-british-academic-court-sentences-life-spying

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-Durham University PhD student Matthew Hedges and his wife Daniela Tejada in London.

  In a short statement UAE ambassador to UK

Almazroui dismissed accusations that Hedges had not received a fair trial, while stressing that the strength of his country's partnership with Britain meant both sides were determined to reach a solution.  "Matthew Hedges was not convicted after a five-minute show trial, as some have reported, " Almazroui said.  "Over the course of one month three judges evaluated compelling evidence in three hearings.  They reached their conclusions after a full and proper process. This was an extremely serious case."..."Matt was held in an undisclosed location in solitary confinement for over five months, with no charge, no lawyer and very limited consular access," his wife Daniela said. "The judicial system in the UAE and the UK cannot be compared.  I was in the court room and the hearing lasted less than five minutes."...

  UK Foreign Minister Hunt also warned there will be "serious diplomatic consequences for a country that says it is a friend and ally of the United Kingdom." https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/23/uk/matthew-hedges-considering-pardon-uae-gbr-intl/index.html