Human Rights Watch Condemns UAE’s Record on Unfair Trials and Torture
Human Rights Watch has condemned the UAE’s history of unfair trials, torture, and mistreatment, asserting that oral guarantees of fair treatment cannot outweigh the country’s long-standing human rights violations.
This statement was issued in response to the Lebanese government’s decision to deport Abdel Rahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian-Turkish poet, to the UAE on January 8, 2025. Al-Qaradawi now faces the real threat of an unfair trial and potential abuse, including torture.
Mohamed Sablooh, Al-Qaradawi’s lawyer, informed Human Rights Watch that Lebanese authorities detained Al-Qaradawi on December 28, 2024, at the Masnaa border crossing after he returned from Syria, following an arrest warrant from Egypt.
Sablooh added that a second arrest request came from the UAE on December 30. The Lebanese authorities stated that the UAE had requested Al-Qaradawi’s extradition on January 2, based on accusations of spreading false information and disturbing public order.
Sablooh clarified that the arrest request stemmed from a social media post made by Al-Qaradawi during his visit to Syria. Human Rights Watch reviewed the post and found no legal basis for it to be considered a crime under international law.
Ramzi Qais, a Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch, remarked, “The deportation of a poet to the UAE for peaceful social media criticism directly undermines the rule of law in Lebanon.”
He further emphasized that deporting someone for criticizing another government sends a dangerous message that Lebanese authorities will overlook violations in order to appease powerful Gulf states, even without evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.
Al-Qaradawi is not a UAE national and was not in the UAE at the time of any alleged offenses. Sablooh appealed the deportation to Lebanon’s State Shura Council, the highest administrative court, on January 8, just one day after the decision was made.
However, the Lebanese government proceeded with the deportation without awaiting the outcome of the appeal.
Sablooh explained that Al-Qaradawi had visited Syria following the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad and posted a video from the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where he criticized the governments of Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
He also mentioned that Egypt had issued a separate arrest request due to an in absentia sentence of three years for Al-Qaradawi, charged with “spreading false news” and “insulting judicial authorities.”
On January 3, Sablooh sent a letter to the Lebanese prosecutor’s office, urging the government not to extradite Al-Qaradawi to the UAE or Egypt, highlighting the severe risks he would face in both countries.
Despite this, the government decided on January 7 to approve the extradition request, with the prosecutor recommending it. On the same day, 17 human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, sent a joint letter to the Lebanese government urging them to reject the extradition requests from Egypt and the UAE.
uman Rights Watch has stated that the deportation of Abdel Rahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to the UAE breaches Lebanese domestic laws and Lebanon’s international obligations, including under the “Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” to which Lebanon is a party.
Article 34 of the Lebanese Penal Code stipulates that extradition requests must be refused if they are based on “a politically motivated crime or if it appears to be for a political purpose.”
Meanwhile, Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture provides that “no State Party shall expel, return (‘refouler’), or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
In recent years, the UAE government has pursued a relentless campaign against human rights, enacting oppressive laws and policies, and unlawfully detaining activists, human rights defenders, political dissidents, and other perceived critics.
Many of these detainees are serving long sentences in UAE prisons after unfair trials based on vague and ambiguous charges that violate their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
In 2024, the UAE conducted its second-largest unfair mass trial in modern history, raising concerns over due process, including limited access to case materials, inadequate legal assistance, judges directing witness testimonies, violations of the double jeopardy principle, and reasonable allegations of serious mistreatment and abuse. The trials were surrounded by secrecy.
Several defendants were subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, which may constitute torture. Critics such as Al-Qaradawi face similar risks of procedural violations and unfair trials in the UAE.
The Lebanese government decision noted that the UAE had committed to providing “fair and humane treatment” to Al-Qaradawi, based on a phone call on January 7, 2025, between UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
However, Human Rights Watch contends that verbal assurances of fair treatment cannot outweigh the UAE’s record of unfair trials, torture, and mistreatment.
The UAE’s crackdown on freedom of expression has also targeted non-UAE nationals residing in the country, with the authorities involved in forced deportations of perceived dissidents.
In May 2023, Jordanian authorities detained a man with dual UAE-Turkish citizenship, Khalaf Abdel Rahman Al-Rumeithi, and deported him to the UAE, where he was forcibly disappeared. He was later subjected to a mass trial marred by violations of due process, mistreatment, and torture.
