Demands to open an independent international investigation into the UAE’s violations against prisoners of conscience

The International Center for Justice and Human Rights called for an immediate and impartial investigation by an independent international committee to investigate the violations suffered by UAE detainees.

The Centre said that the UAE’s violations include torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearance and arbitrary arrest, stressing the need to refer all those who are proven to be involved in the violations to a fair and prompt judiciary and to give them the right to a remedy to redress their material and moral harm and restore their dignity.

The Centre’s statement came on the occasion of the eleventh anniversary of the “Reform Petition” submitted by a group of human rights activists, academics, advisers, former government officials, writers and others on March 3, 2011, to the President of the Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and members of the Federal Supreme Council.

The petition called for the free and complete election of all members of the Federal National Council by all citizens. It also called for the reform of the legislation regulating its work to guarantee it full legislative and oversight authority, with the necessary constitutional amendments to be made to ensure this.

The Centre said, “The signatories of the reform petition did not aim to break the regime, endangering state security, or insult the head of state. Rather, they were keen, through their petition, to demand the empowerment of rights and freedoms peacefully under international standards guaranteed by international covenants.”

It added that the UAE authorities launched the State Security Apparatus to target the signatories of the reform petition from political activists, human rights activists and academics, and subjected them to many severe violations of torture and ill-treatment, which affected their safety their physical and moral sanctity.

According to the centre, there were numerous unfair trials involving the signatories of the reform petition and other human rights defenders, politicians and bloggers, in which all fair trial guarantees were lacking, including in particular the right to a lawyer, the presumption of innocence, and the exclusion of confessions extracted under torture.

The State Security Department of the Federal Supreme Court issued final rulings that are not subject to appeal, imprisoning them for long periods in what is known as the “Emirates 5”, “Emirates 7” and “UAE 94” cases and other cases.

They were tried on the meaning of broad, vague and loose laws to arbitrariness in their interpretation and misuse, to free the state’s security apparatus to affect peaceful reformist opponents, human rights activists, and civilians.

Among those laws is Federal Law No. 7 of 2014 on combating Emirati terrorist crimes, which used the war on terrorism as a pretext to undermine rights and freedoms and abolish all pluralism by banning and dissolving associations, confiscating their property and imprisoning those responsible for them without providing them with the guarantees of grievance and a fair trial.

Another is law No. 5 of 2012 on combating information technology crimes, which stressed the criminalization and punishment of activists for their posts and tweets.

The International Center for Justice and Human Rights documented the violations of prisoners’ rights by the UAE authorities, including reformist opponents, human rights activists, bloggers who signed the reform petition and others inside the UAE prisons, such as Al-Razeen, Al-Wathba and Al-Sadr prisons.

The harassment affected the families of prisoners when they visited their imprisoned sons, in violation of the UN set of principles relating to the protection of all persons subjected to any form of detention or imprisonment.

The UAE authorities also denied rights activists and politicians who signed the citizenship reform petition against their wives and children. They deprived them of their right to file an administrative and judicial grievance against the decision to withdraw citizenship.

The International Center for Justice and Human Rights called on the UAE authorities to release without delay all human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, bloggers and others who were arrested in connection with participating in and supporting the petition.

It stressed that Abu Dhabi must abide by its commitments in human rights and expedite the acceptance of the recommendations of the Human Rights Council, especially the items related to respecting freedom of expression and signing the relevant international conventions.