Rights center: The UAE regime tightens Mansoor’s isolation

The Human Rights Center confirmed that the ruling regime in the UAE has arbitrarily tightened the procedures of isolation of prominent human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor.

The Emirates Center for Human Rights said that human rights activist Mansoor is being deliberately deprived of phone calls with his family by a decision of the Emirati authorities with the aim of isolating and punishing him.

The Center emphasized that the practices of the Emirati authorities against Mansoor are a clear violation of his right to communicate with the outside world, which is stipulated in Article 37 of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which provides for regular contact with the family.

Recently, Human Rights Watch said that the UAE is persecuting the activist Mansoor, who was arrested on the grounds of opinion, and is demanding his immediate release.

Joe Stork, an international human rights expert and Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that Mansoor has been confined in an isolation cell in the UAE since his arrest in March 2017, and has been deprived of books, bed, and even fresh air, and his health has deteriorated.

A UAE court sentenced Ahmed Mansoor to 10 years in prison for “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols, including its leaders” and “publishing false reports and information on social media.”
“We don’t know what alleged ‘insults’ and ‘false reports’ could warrant a decade behind bars,” said Stork. “Ahmed’s trial was closed and neither the charge sheet nor the court ruling has been made public. Ahmed used Facebook and other social media platforms to call attention to miscarriages of justice in the UAE. He shared information with rights organizations abroad about unfair trials that had already put other Emirati rights activists and defense lawyers in prison.

“It’s a testament to its smooth diplomacy and public relations money that the UAE has long avoided criticism of its appalling human rights record from allies like the United States, United Kingdom, and France. What would George Orwell make of a state that has brazenly hosted two ‘World Tolerance Summits’ and created a ministry of ‘Happiness and Wellbeing,’ after closing down political and civil society organizations that peacefully promoted views different from those of the rulers? The absence of any independent press in the UAE made Ahmed’s social media reporting important but threatening.

“The UAE’s persecution of Ahmed Mansoor for his “thought crimes” has been cruel, even gratuitous. International sporting and cultural events are the face that UAE rulers present to the world, but they cannot mask the terrible spectacle of the country’s leading rights defender alone in a bare cell in inhumane conditions.”

On May 30, 2018, the Federal Court in Abu Dhabi convicted Mansoor for his human rights activities, and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of one million dirhams ($272,000).

The same court also ruled to confiscate all his communication devices, and to impose administrative control for a period of three years on him.

In December 2018, the Federal Supreme Court upheld the final verdict on Mansoor, which is not subject to appeal, a matter that has drawn condemnation from many Arab and international human rights parties.

Human Rights Watch considered this ruling “another nail in the coffin of any hope for justice in the Emirates.”