The UAE abuses detainees by denying their pensions

The ruling regime in the United Arab Emirates has arbitrarily abused detainees in its prisons through a new procedure depriving of their pensions.

The UAE authorities have decided to stop paying the prisoners of conscience in Al-Razeen prison their pensions unless they invoke unexpired passports, which is, of course, impossible.

Human rights groups have noted that many of the activists held in the Al-Razeen prison hold passports about to expire because they have been in arbitrary detention for years.

The prisoners’ families are facing various difficulties the UAE authorities intend to put before them in the process of renewal of passports, which may lead to the abolition of the rights of human rights detainees in pensions.

It is noteworthy that these violations, which are not the only of their kind against the detainees of opinion, which may not only deprive the detainees of their pension but also deprive their families of the income that provides them a decent life.

Human rights organizations also confirm that the UAE authorities put obstacles to the wives of detainees to prevent them from obtaining the necessary administrative documents for them and their children. For example, the wives and sons of detainees were denied from their right to renew their passports, failed to issue birth certificates for newborns and deliberately intimidated families and threatened to withdraw their nationality.

Prisoners of conscience in the UAE are exposed to grievances that are not limited to them but extend to their families and relatives, who are restricted to living, and whose children are facing difficulties to integrate into social life and facilitate their administrative and financial affairs.

The International Center for Prison Studies classifies Al-Razeen prison in the UAE as one of the ten worst prisons in the world.

This infamous prison is used to denounce their opponents and subject them to various forms of systematic torture in brutal and horrific ways.

Human rights activists describe the prison as “UAE Guantánamo” where detainees are subjected to physical and psychological torture, extreme cooling, and sleep deprivation.

The International Center for Justice and Human Rights in Geneva highlighted that the prisons of the UAE are crowded with prisoners and “the heat in the rooms and the spread of dirt and disease.”

The International Center said that the administration of the prisons of Eyal Zayed (Zayed’s Sons) does not provide medical care or enough water and food for prisoners, but deliberately and thirst and starvation to pressure them and kill them slowly.

The UAE’s anti-terrorism law contains provisions that would put the wives and families of prisoners of conscience at risk, according to Human Rights Watch International.

According to the law, families are no longer able to reveal any violations committed by the UAE authorities or to present them to the public opinion, otherwise, they will be deprived of their rights and the rights of their children.

In its report issued in early July 2017, the International Center for Justice and Human Rights in Geneva called on the world to highlight and condemn abuses committed by the families of UAE detainees.

The international organization also called for the cessation of the policy of collective punishment against the families of prisoners and their children, and respect for their right to travel, work, study and dispose of their property and money, which are prohibited rights.

Detainees in Abu Dhabi prisons have already staged a number of hunger strikes, the latest of which was a hunger strike in mid-June 2017 by political prisoners at the Al-Razeen.

In a solidarity campaign, participants say the so-called “battle of the empty intestine” was triggered by violent practices and denial of rights by the prison administration and the UAE’s state security apparatus to inmates, along with five-year incarceration for some of them without trial.

The campaign specifically referred to the prisoner Omar Radwan, who led the strike, serving a seven-year sentence in the framework of Emirates 94.