UN demands to save a detainee’s life in UAE
UN experts have asked the United Arab Emirates to release Alia Abdulnoor, who is suffering from a “fatal” disease, pointing out that she was subjected to torture and inhumane and degrading treatment.
The report prepared by a team of UN human rights experts led by Dainius Pūras, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, condemned the UAE’s practices towards Abdulnoor.
The report, published by the United Nations news website, said that the state security authorities arrested Abdulnoor on July 28, 2015, and accused her of “financing terrorism,” after she helped to raise funds for needy Syrian families, women, and children in the UAE affected by the war in Syria.
Ms. Abdulnoor is being held in secret detention and in solitary confinement for six months. She was subjected to severe physical and psychological humiliation and threats and was forced to sign a written confession obtained under torture, according to the report.
The experts expressed serious concern about her physical and mental condition and reports that her detention conditions caused unnecessary pain. It’s been said that “Ms. Abdulnoor is being held in a room without windows or ventilation, chained and under armed guard.”
experts reminded the UAE that ” torture and ill-treatment are universally and absolutely prohibited and that any statement made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence.”
According to the report, Ms. Abdulnoor breast cancer has reached its final stage and the disease has now spread to vital organs of her body.
In November 2018, because of state of health deteriorating she was transferred to Mafraq hospital.
The report said that “while the authorities have rejected her family’s many requests that she be released on medical grounds, the last one submitted on 10 January, resulted in her transfer to Tawam hospital, in Al Ain, where reports say she continues to be denied appropriate medication to reduce her pain.”
Experts called on the UAE authorities to release Abdulnoor and allow her to spend her last days in dignity with her family at home.
They called on the UAE to investigate alleged torture and ill-treatment and prosecute the suspected perpetrators in line with their obligations under international human rights law.
The Arab Organization for Human Rights revealed in a report last May that “the UAE authorities continue to destroy the value system, customs, and traditions of the tribal community in the UAE; the torture of women and the threat of rape, unprecedented in the Gulf states, and confirms that the security services no longer mobilized by any public protest or international.”
“The spread of torture in the UAE is a natural result of the collapse of the justice system and its inability to achieve any legal remedy for the victims of torture and enforced disappearances while providing a safe environment for the perpetrators of these crimes,” the organization said.
It called on the international community to pressure the UAE authorities to release all political detainees in the UAE, to investigate all violations committed against them, and to stop the policy of torture inside UAE detention centers for all prisoners.
