Cross-Border Repression Places UAE at the Top of Arab Rights Violators
The UAE has been identified as a leading perpetrator of cross-border repression in the Arab world through arbitrary extraditions targeting peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders. A coalition of 15 human rights organizations highlighted in a joint statement the UAE’s prominent role in facilitating these abuses, particularly through the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, which has been accused of enabling politically motivated extraditions under the pretense of regional security cooperation.
The council, often misleadingly referred to as the “Arab Interpol,” operates as an Arab League body responsible for coordinating internal security efforts, but its mechanisms have been systematically misused to silence opposition voices across the region.
Despite explicit prohibitions on politically motivated extraditions under the Arab Convention on Judicial Cooperation and the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation, these practices continue unchecked due to the lack of independent oversight. The framework has effectively become a tool for governments to pursue political dissidents under the guise of legal cooperation.
Between 2022 and 2025, the human rights group MENA Rights documented multiple cases of unlawful extradition. Emirati political dissident Khalaf Al-Rumaithi was forcibly returned from Jordan to the UAE in May 2023 and remains forcibly disappeared. Saudi national Hassan Al-Rubaie was extradited from Morocco to Saudi Arabia in February 2023 despite the high risk of torture and remains imprisoned. Kuwaiti activist Salman Al-Khalidi was handed over by Iraq to Kuwait in January 2025 after being sentenced to prison and stripped of his nationality for his online activism. Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman Al-Qaradawi was extradited from Lebanon to the UAE in January 2025, and his fate remains unknown.
Currently, Egyptian citizen Ahmed Kamel faces imminent extradition from Saudi Arabia to Egypt. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for a decade, he is now at risk of deportation in retaliation for his participation in peaceful protests during the Arab Spring in 2011 and 2014. Rights groups warn that if returned, he could face torture and other serious abuses.
Despite the clear violations of international human rights law, Arab governments continue to exploit legal frameworks to suppress dissent. The Arab Interior Ministers’ Council’s regulations fail to incorporate international human rights standards, particularly the principle of non-refoulement under Article 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the extradition of individuals to countries where they are likely to face torture. UN human rights experts have raised concerns about these practices in a letter to the Arab League, emphasizing the lack of transparency and due process, but no response or reform has been undertaken.
Human rights organizations are calling on the Arab Ministers of Justice Council to immediately cease politically motivated extraditions and initiate urgent reforms in consultation with civil society to bring their legal frameworks in line with international human rights standards. As cross-border repression continues to escalate, the absence of accountability leaves political dissidents and human rights defenders across the region vulnerable to persecution far beyond their own borders.
