Rights report: a reform petition that brought the UAE into a group of repressive countries

The Center for the Advocacy of Emirates Detainees published a rights report on a reform petition that called for freedom and democracy in the Emirates, but the authorities met it with repression, which brought the state into a group of repressive states.

The human rights report entitled The march of democracy and tyranny in the UAE.. the beginning was with the petition.

On March 3, 2011, some 133 Emirati citizens of various ideological orientations submitted a petition to the President of the State, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, calling for “democratic and constitutional reforms that give the citizen the right to elect all members of the UAE Federal National Council.”

The signatories to the petition, elite academics, lawyers, judges, journalists, teachers and human rights activists, demanded the empowerment of the Council and the amendment of the relevant constitutional articles to guarantee it full legislative and oversight powers. The Council is currently a purely advisory body that does not have any legislative or regulatory authority.

The petition was worded in “extremely polite” language, as its signers affirmed their adherence to the system of government and indicated that there is “complete harmony between the leadership and the people” and that “participation in decision-making is part of the traditions and customs of this country.”

At first, the authorities received the petition well, which gave hope to the authors that this was a prelude to constitutional reforms that would place the Emirates among the democratic countries, but a strange change occurred suddenly.

Instead of preluding petition reforms, unprecedented violations in the country’s history were carried out, bringing it to the clique of repressive states.

Less than a month after its submission, the authorities arrested 5 human rights activists, whom they believed to be the masterminds, and charged them with “insulting state symbols and inciting acts that endanger state security.”

But the arrest of the five was only a simple prelude to a significant repressive campaign to suppress opponents and human rights activists, as it expanded to include the arrest and abuse of dozens of signatories to the petition.

The campaign focused on the abuse of members of the Association for Reform and Social Guidance, as the authorities arrested 94 of them, accused them of “establishing an illegal secret organization and plotting to overthrow the regime,” and they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Many media outlets linked the petition to the events of the Arab Spring and described what happened as the “Emirati protests 2011,” a description that the researcher finds in Wikipedia.

The Emirati authorities also tried to reinforce this idea, suggesting that the goal is to ignite a revolution against the regime, although the signatories affirmed their adherence.

The truth is that the petition had nothing to do with the Arab Spring and what is happening in neighbouring countries, and this is confirmed by human rights activist Ahmed Mansour, one of the masterminds. 

It was just a reaction to the decree issued in February 2011, which announced the holding of new elections for the Federal National Council and the names of persons chosen by the authorities as members, without adding any powers to it.

The idea of ​​the petition came to ask the authorities to amend the method for selecting the Council, half of which is appointed by the authorities. The others come through elections where a group of people chosen by the authorities also participate.

The petition demanded that Emiratis be granted the right to vote like others; that the Council be given powers that allow it to exercise real work as a representative of the people. This does not contradict the constitution, which the country’s rulers pledged in its preamble to “walk towards democratic, representative rule with integrated pillars.”

The method of petitions is also a well-established Emirati tradition. It may be the only democratic way that citizens have used since the establishment of the state to express their demands, desires and ideas, and the authorities have often responded to them.

In 2009, when Mansour organized a petition calling on the head of state to reject the media law because of its threat to freedom of expression, the latter responded by suspending the law.

Despite this, the Emirati authorities, for some incomprehensible reason, considered the petition an unforgivable crime and launched a campaign to abuse the signatories, imprisoning them, harassing their families and revoking their nationalities. They were denied their most basic rights.

This is despite the fact that the petition was only a “peaceful and polite” way to demand the right to vote. It did not include any indications of their rejection of the system of government but rather their adherence to it.

It can be said that the sacrifice made by the signatories so far is the largest sacrifice in the history of the UAE since its founding, as dozens of them enter their tenth year in prison, which is the largest prison term for a political prisoner in the country.

Some detainees lost their job, others lost their families or their money, and some lost all of that just because they wanted the Emirati people to get their right to vote by choosing their representatives.