Emirati activist still in arbitrary detention two years after the end of his sentence

UAE activist Osama al-Najjar remains in illegal detention, despite serving a three-year prison sentence more than two years ago.

Al-Najjar was arrested in March 2014 for publishing a tweet condemning his father’s torture in prison, and his call for his release and other prisoners of conscience in the UAE.

Osama’s father, Hussain al-Najjar, is one of 94 UAE activists who were collectively tried in 2013 for calling for political reform in the UAE on charges of “harming state security.” He is currently serving 11 years in prison.

In November 2014, the state security service of the Federal Supreme Court, whose verdicts cannot be appealed, sentenced Osama to three years in prison under the country’s Cyber Crime Act on numerous charges including “inciting hatred” against the state and “designing a web site contains ideas and information sarcastic and defamatory. “

He was scheduled to be released on March 17, 2017. However, at the request of the Public Prosecution, the court considered him a “threat” to national security and extended his detention. Two years later, Osama remained behind bars, and there was no end to his detention.

In a recent statement marking the end of the official term, the International Campaign for Freedom in the United Arab Emirates said: “As there is no trial proceeding this form of detention, those transferred to such facilities can be held indefinitely with the government – rather than the judiciary – handing down punishment. This type of administrative detention grossly violates international standards of due process.”

Although he has not been convicted of a terrorist offense, Osama is being held at the counseling center at Al-Razeen prison under the country’s anti-terrorism law. The UAE authorities claim that the purpose of these facilities is to provide guidance to those who are considered a “threat to the state”. However, human rights groups say the authorities are using anti-terrorism laws and centers called “counseling centers” as an excuse to indefinitely detain prisoners of conscience.

The authorities in the UAE are holding a number of detainees whose prison terms have ended in 2018 on the pretext that they still pose a threat, although their charges were related to criticism of social networks. They are Abdullah al-Hilou, Faisal al-Shehhi, Badr al-Bahri, Ahmad al-Mulla, Saeed al-Buraimi, and Abdel-Wahid al-Badi.

The UAE authorities deal with prisoners of conscience and deny them the basic rights to good and adequate eating, attack prisoners in their places of imprisonment, and launch raids on their sleeping places late at night.