The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government continues to invest in strategy with the goal of portraying the country as liberal, tolerant, and rights-respecting. Yet, with the prolonged imprisonment of major human rights defender Ahmed Mansour, academic Nasser bin Ghaith, and other activists and dissidents, the country’s extreme intolerance of criticism was on full display. Some had served their sentences for up to three years and are still being held without a strong legitimate justification.
Abuse of detainees and deplorable prison conditions
Prisons around the UAE housed detainees in deplorable and unsanitary conditions, with rampant overcrowding and a lack of proper medical care. Detainees and prison employees were at a higher risk of catching the virus when the Covid-19 epidemic broke out.
Hundreds of activists, intellectuals, and lawyers are imprisoned in the UAE, many of them after unfair trials on ambiguous charges that violate their right to free expression and association.
Detainees faced substantial risks of arbitrary and incommunicado imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment, extended solitary incarceration, and denial of access to legal counsel, especially in situations purportedly related to state security. Coerced confessions were used as evidence in court, and prisoners complained of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and lack of medical care.
Covid-19 breakouts have been reported in at least three UAE detention facilities, exacerbating already deplorable prison conditions such as a lack of medical care and therapy, as well as connections with the outside world.
Women’s Rights
The concept of discrimination in the UAE’s 2015 anti-discrimination law excludes discrimination based on sex or gender. Women are discriminated against under some aspects of the law governing personal status issues. A woman’s male guardian must sign her marriage contract before she can marry. Men can divorce their wives unilaterally, whilst women must seek a divorce through the courts.
Migrant Workers
According to 2015 International Labour Organization data, foreign nationals made up more than 80% of the UAE’s demographic. Migrant workers’ permits were attached to their employers under the kafala (sponsorship) system, which means they can not change or quit their jobs with their employers’ approval.
Those who left their workplaces without permission faced penalties such as fines, prison time, and deportation. Forced labor posed a serious threat to many low-wage migrant laborers.
Thousands of people left the UAE after being dismissed entirely, but many failed to return home due to travel restrictions and pricey plane tickets, leaving them being unable pay rent or buy food.
Washington Center For Human Rights calls on individuals, associations, organizations, and the UN to show greater solidarity with UAE political prisoners and human rights activists by signing this petition, which demands that the UAE government:
- Immediate and unconditional release of all human rights activists, women’s right defenders prisoners who are being held in Emirati prisons.
- Remove any arbitrary decisions made by the UAE government against human rights defenders and their families, such as revoking citizenship and barring some of them from traveling or working.
- Establish a separate, fair, and unbiased judiciary system, which protects human rights.
- Allow international observers, including the UN, Human Rights Watch to visit the detention center and attend trials in UAE.