Abusing prisoners of conscience: flagrant evidence of UAE violations of human rights

Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. This article is being violated on a daily basis in the United Arab Emirates.

In light of the spread of the coronavirus, the detention of sick, adult, and prisoners of conscience, whose sentences have ended in the Emirati regime prisons, constitutes a form of torture and ill-treatment.

The Emirates Center for Human Rights highlighted that, although prisoners have inalienable rights as defined by the human rights system, which are rights granted to them by international treaties and covenants, including the right to health care, prisoners of conscience in the Emirates are subject to a systematic violation of this right.

The Center stressed that it is appropriate for the authorities in the UAE to accelerate the release of detainees whose sentences have expired and give them their right to freedom until the darkness ends for them and to protect them from the spread of the virus inside the prison.

In the last two decades, the UAE has experienced a great constraint on freedoms, which has increased in the last decade, specifically since 2011, after the emergence of a new Arab climate that implies political changes on the horizon that would enhance freedoms and democracy in the Arab countries.

The state witnessed an escalating pattern in political arrests, against the background of charges related to opinion, civil rights activity and peaceful opposition aimed at reforming the political situation and calling for the consecration of freedoms and multi-partisan development and the development of civil society institutions.

The owners of these invitations affirm that they are far from being moves against the Emirati authority or with a disruptive background, but are merely national positions aimed at reforming and expanding the circle of decision within the state and involving internal parties and national figures with scientific and cognitive qualifications.

These calls are intended to ensure greater representativeness within the wheels of power, achieve democracy and pluralism, and enhance the role of civil society.

However, these peaceful opponents found themselves facing severe and severe prison terms, most of which were issued in unlawful conditions.