First anniversary of the death of Alia Abdel Nour in UAE prisons

The fourth May marks the first anniversary of the death of prisoners of conscience Alia Abdelnour inside the prisons of the ruling regime in the United Arab Emirates. It has become an international symbol that exposes persecution and oppression in the country and witnesses to the allegations of “empowering women” in the Emirates.

Abdulnour died a year ago in the prisons of the Emirati regime due to torture and neglect, in a clear showing the severity of human rights violations in the state and the lack of public freedoms in light of the arbitrary detention of hundreds of opinion detainees and their medical neglect.

Alia was arrested in 2015 and subjected to torture and threatening to eliminate her parents, eventually having to sign documents without reading them, including confessions in cooperation with terrorist organizations abroad, and then sentenced to ten years in prison.

Alia’s story went viral after she was diagnosed with breast cancer months after her arrest. The UAE authorities refused to allow her to receive the necessary treatment and even went so far as to force her to sign a document stating that she refuses to receive treatment.

After four years of being diagnosed with the disease, and while the disease had spread throughout her body, it was only then that Alia was transferred to the hospital, a few days before her death.

Despite her poor condition, the family was prevented from visiting her regularly, and the UAE authorities ignored international and human rights calls to release her and allow her to die in dignity at her home.

The Emirati regime falsely promotes its “empowerment of women” and its adoption of “tolerance”, while Alia Abdulnour was subjected to arrest, abuse, torture, and solitary confinement before she died of medical negligence.

Alia is one of the Emirati women who were brutally persecuted in the security cells.

The diseased woman was arrested on charges of collecting donations for the Syrian families, including widows, orphans and displaced persons who were affected by the civil war in Syria.

Alia has had a medical record since 2008. She was diagnosed with cancer in Germany and recovered back then.

However, after the arrest, during her trial and years of imprisonment, she was re-infected with the same disease, and she recommended to receive chemotherapy at the Al-Mafraq Governmental Hospital before undergoing into a surgery, due to the presence of cirrhosis, enlarged lymph nodes and osteoporosis.

Like other activists and prisoners of conscience, Alia was subjected to enforced disappearance for approximately four months. In the first three months, she was completely blocked from outer space, while she was allowed to phone her family in the fourth month.

Alia, before being brought before the prosecution and throughout the four months of enforced disappearance, was subjected to ill-treatment and degrading human dignity.

She was prevented from communicating with a lawyer or contacting her family, with intent to destroy her morally, to terrorize and to humiliate her, as well as to put her in conditions of intentional worsening of her health, such as being held in a narrow, severely illuminated solitary cell, with no mattress or blanket.

Alia remained blindfolded, handcuffed and bound, throughout the period of enforced disappearance. Alia was subjected to interrogation, and she is blindfolded and tied for long hours, 17 hours straight.

Alia was tried under the Federal Penal Code, a federal law on combating terrorist crimes, and a federal law on combating IT crime.

Human rights organizations also documented the human rights violations that Alia was subjected to in this station. The blindfold and handcuffs continued to accompany Alia even during the trial. The court refused to investigate Alia’s statements that she was subjected to torture and forced confession. Alia was denied legal representation, as the lawyers were threatened if they took up her case. The court considered its social activity a terrorist crime.

The late State Security Agency transferred Alia to the notorious Al Wathba prison in December 2015, to face further harassment and human rights violations, such as depriving her parents of her visit for a period of two months after being transferred to Al Wathba prison, and then repeatedly depriving them of her visit so far. The jailer did not hesitate to force Alia to strip naked for inspection upon her arrival in prison.

She was also tortured in prison in May 2018, prevented from sleeping, and forced to take tranquillizers and sedatives continuously, with the aim of driving her addiction. All this inhuman treatment exacerbated the disease of Alia cancer.

Alia spent her last days in hospital also bound to bed and subjected to heavy guard, while family visits were forbidden. Not only that, but the UAE law requires the authorities to release every sick prisoner if he is spending his final days, to be close to his family, but the security apparatus denies the law and refuses to grant Alia the right to die among her family.

The authorities and the bureaus of some of the crown princes rejected repeated requests to release her family, as well as hundreds of human rights appeals issued by the United Nations, the European Union, the European Parliament, and human rights organizations around the world.