The United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review is a unique process which involves a review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States once every 4.5 years.

CIVICUS and its partners have submitted UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) submissions on two countries in advance of the 43^rd UPR session in April-May 2023. The submissions examine the state of civil society in each country, including the promotion and protection of the rights to freedom of association, assembly and expression and the environment for human rights defenders. We further provide an assessment of the States’ domestic implementation of civic space recommendations received during the 3^rd UPR cycle over 4 years ago and provide a number of targeted follow-up recommendations. 

United Arab Emirates -  See consolidated report | See full version in English –The submission by CIVICUS, Emirates Detainees Advocacy Centre (EDAC), Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) highlights concerns over the increasing barriers against civil society organisations (CSOs) operating independently in the UAE and the persistent targeting of  civil society organisations (CSOs). The UAE authorities have created a hostile environment for CSOs and denied labour unions the right to operate and advocate for the rights of workers. The report also documents the use of security-related legislation to persecute human rights defenders (HRDs), academics, journalists and bloggers, who have been subjected to harsh prison conditions and kept in detention beyond their sentences.

Burundi - See consolidated report | See full version in English –In this submission, CIVICUS, Defend Defenders, Ligue Iteka and Association Burundaise pour la Protection des Droits Humains et des Personnes Détenues (APRODH) report the persistent human rights violations and abuses in Burundi, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrests, as well as severe restrictions on civil and political rights and widespread impunity. The submission further highlights the targeting of CSOs and HRDs through restrictive laws and practices, and judicial harassment in the form of fabricated cases and unfair trials.

Statement at the 49th Session of the UN Human Rights Council

Item 4 General Debate

Delivered byLisa Majumdar

42nd Session of the UN Human Rights Council
-Statement on report of Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

CIVICUS thanks the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for their report. We are concerned that it shows Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia - Human Rights Council member states from the Middle East – as well as Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and the UAE, all using arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance to silence civil society and shut down dissent with impunity. 

Bahrain arbitrarily detained Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and Nabeel Rajab on 9 April 2011 and 13 June 2016 respectively. They are among dozens of human rights defenders whom the authorities have arbitrarily detained, including Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace and Naji Fateel, both subject to mistreatment by officials. The authorities denied them medical treatment and interfered with their family visits. We are particularly alarmed by the Working Group’s reports of reprisals against those who have been subject of an urgent appeal or opinion in Bahrain. This falls far short of the standards that every state, but particularly members of the Human Rights Council, should uphold.

We condemn Egypt's arbitrary arrest of lawyer Ibrahim Metwally in 2017 en route to attend an HRC session, to present cases of enforced disappearance, and his ill-treatment. His and the cases of 12 others arbitrarily arrested in June 2019 reflect Egypt's closure of civic space.

In Iraq, we condemn the detention of journalists, protesters and civil society activists. During protests in Basra, at least seven Iraqi journalists were assaulted or detained including Reuters photographer Essam al-Sudani.

Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on women’s and other human rights defenders forms its systematic use of arbitrary detention in which thousands have been detained.

Those detained in 2018 included Aziza al-Yousef; Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan and other women’s rights advocates who also campaigned to end the driving ban, as well as writers, academics and family members of WHRDs. “Charges” were only brought against them in March 2019. They remain in prison, alongside members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA); Mohammed al-Qahtani, and Abdullah al-Hamid; blogger Raif Badawi and human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair.

Iran systematically arbitrarily detains trade unionists, HRDs, minority rights activists and lawyers like Nasrin Sotoudeh and Narges Mohammadi.

Kuwait’s arbitrary arrest in July, of stateless rights activists including Abdulhakim al-Fadhli exemplifies the intersectionality of rights and how guaranteeing civil space bolsters other rights. 

The UAE’s March 2017 arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance of HRD Ahmed Mansoor continues to tarnish the UAE, showing that its “year of tolerance” does not include human rights.

Mr. President, the report of the Working Group shows that the use of arbitrary detention – often without charge, recourse to access independent legal representation, and in poor conditions of detention – remains an active method to quell dissent across the Middle East. 

CIVICUS joins civil society in calling for full cooperation with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and we call on states who have instrumentalized arbitrary detention to immediately release those detained and provide justice and remedy to victims and their families. 

We ask the Working Group: what more can be done to ensure implementation of its appeals and opinions in states where arbitrary detention remains so widespread?

Women in the United Arab Emirates continue to face incredible barriers to their rights to civic freedoms by state and non-state actors. Living under the male guardianship system, that grants control over their movement, finances and interactions, these women can face detainment for merely reporting sexual violence in authorities. Because of this already patriarchal system, women human rights defenders face additional barriers in campaigning for their rights – they are frequently targeted and shamed by state and non-state actors (including family, communities and society at large). While imprisoned, women are also subject to torture and violence – but largely erased from the public sphere because of entrenched patriarchy. During CSW63, we highlight the great challenges facing WHRDs in the UAE and ask you to stand with them – calling for greater protections for Emirati women by state actors. The United Arab Emirates is rated ‘closed’ on the CIVICUS Monitor.

Dear friends,

As you ready yourselves to hold the limelight on the stages and tracks of the final Formula One race of the season, we the undersigned NGOs, wish to draw your attention to the reality of the human rights situation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is a far cry from the glitz and glamour the country intends to project to the world.

Since 2011, the UAE authorities have embarked on a crackdown to silence their critics including human rights defenders, judges, lawyers, academics, students and journalists. They have been harassed, arbitrarily detained, subjected to enforced disappearance, tortured and otherwise ill-treated, and convicted following trials that failed to meet international standards of fairness. Critics and dissidents in the UAE are serving lengthy prison sentences simply for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression and we consider them to be prisoners of conscience who should be released immediately and unconditionally.

The UAE authorities have tightened and amended their already repressive laws to further suppress human rights and particularly to silence peaceful dissent and other expression on public issues. As a result, human rights defenders and other critics of the government have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

The UAE is listed as ‘closed’ on the CIVICUS Monitor which is the lowest and most oppressive category as far as protection of civic freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly is concerned.

Today we are launching a campaign to call for the release of prisoners of conscience in the UAE and we urge you to lend us your support.

We call upon you, drivers, teams and performers to be the champions of human rights on the circuit and on stage; to be the voices of those who have been silenced and unfairly detained. We urge you to use your celebrity status to call on the UAE authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience who have been detained solely for peacefully criticizing the authorities, or for calling or advocating for the respect and protection of human rights.

Please tweet, post and speak about their stories online and in your media appearances so that these prisoners are not forgotten. You can use the hashtags #AbuDhabiGP #F1 and #Formula1.

These are the stories of some of the hundreds of prisoners of conscience detained for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression:

Blogger and poet Ahmed Mansoor is a prominent human rights defender, who received the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015. He is a member of the advisory committee of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, as well as of the advisory board of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR). He has documented the human rights situation in the UAE since 2006 and has publicly spoken out in defence of human rights in his blog, social media and in interviews with international media. Up until his arrest on 20 March 2017, Ahmed Mansoor was the last remaining human rights defender in the UAE who had been able to criticize the authorities publicly. On 29 May 2018, Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The trial was held in secret, and there is no public record of the proceedings. It is unclear if he had a lawyer. On 4 October, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for his release. He is held in solitary confinement at al-Sadr prison in Abu Dhabi.

Dr Mohammed al-Roken is a prominent human rights lawyer from the emirate of Dubai, and former president of the UAE’s Jurists Association. He was arrested on17 July 2012 and for the next three months, he was held in solitary confinement at an undisclosed location. His fate and whereabouts were unknown in what amounted to enforced disappearance. He was sentenced in July 2013 to 10 years’ imprisonment, at the end of the grossly unfair trial of 94 reform advocates which became known as the “UAE 94” trial.

Many of the UAE 94 defendants and others standing trial before the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court have alleged in court that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in pre-trial detention, where they were often held incommunicado for months in secret State Security detention facilities. The State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court has not adequately investigated these allegations, despite mounting evidence that State Security is abusing detainees.

Online activist Osama al-Najjar was arrested on 17 March 2014 and sentenced to three years in prison after sending tweets to the Minister of Interior expressing concern that his father Hussain Ali al-Najjar al-Hammadi had been ill-treated in prison, where he is serving over 11 years. Osama al-Najjar was due for release from al-Razeen Prison in Abu Dhabi in March 2017, having fully served his prison sentence. However, the authorities decided to extend his detention on the pretext that he remained a threat. Following his arrest, Osama al-Najjar was denied access to a lawyer for over six months. After his arrest he was held in solitary confinement for four days at a secret detention facility where he said he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated.

Prominent economist, academic and human rights defender, Dr Nasser bin Ghaith,was arrested in August 2015 and subjected to enforced disappearance for more than seven months. He did not have access to a lawyer until the beginning of his trial in April 2016 and was not allowed to prepare an effective defence. In March 2017, he was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges including “posting false information” about UAE leaders and their policies on Twitter.

Signed:

Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (ADHRB)

Amnesty International

CIVICUS

FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR)

International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)

Martin Ennals Foundation

Pen International

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

On 22 October, Ahmed Mansoor will turn 50 in prison so CIVICUS and partners have organised a series of actions to help #FreeAhmed and offer #BirthdayWishes4Ahmed. The United Arab Emirates authorities have convicted and imprisoned him for 10 years solely for his human rights work and for exercising his right to freedom of expression.  We are looking for signatories to a joint letter calling upon the Emirates government to immediately and unconditionally release the human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, whose life we believe may be at risk following beatings and hunger strikes to protest deplorable and inhumane prison conditions. 

Please add your signature to this letter at either the bottom of this page or at the following link by 14 October: http://eepurl.com/gFtjJr

You can find information about protests worldwide (NYC, DC, Toronto, London and more) at: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofAhmedMansoor/

Le 22 octobre, Ahmed Mansoor célèbrera ses 50 ans en prison, nous avons donc organisé une série d'actions pour aider à sa libération #FreeAhmed et lui offrir nos voeux #BirthdayWishes4Ahmed. Les autorités l'ont condamné et emprisonné pendant 10 ans uniquement pour son travail en faveur des droits humains et pour avoir exercé son droit à la liberté d'expression. Nous recherchons des signataires pour une lettre commune commune (en anglais) appelant le gouvernement des Émirats Arabes Unis à libérer immédiatement et sans condition le défenseur des droits humains Ahmed Mansoor, dont nous pensons que la vie pourrait être en danger à la suite de brutalités et des grèves de la faim entreprises pour dénoncer des conditions carcérales déplorables et inhumaines.

Merci d'ajouter votre signature à cette lettre au bas de cette page ou sur le lien (en anglais) suivant avant le 14 octobre: http://eepurl.com/gFtjJr

Vous pouvez trouver des informations sur les manifestations dans le monde entier (NYC, DC, Toronto, Londres, etc.) en anglais sur: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofAhmedMansoor/

El 22 de octubre, Ahmed Mansoor celebrará sus 50 años en la cárcel, por lo que hemos organizado una serie de acciones para ayudar a su liberación #FreeAhmed y felicitarle #BirthdayWishes4Ahmed. Las autoridades lo han condenado y encarcelado durante 10 años únicamente por su labor en el ámbito de los derechos humanos y por ejercer su derecho a la libertad de expresión. Estamos buscando signatarios para una carta conjunta (en inglés) en la que se pide al gobierno de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos que libere inmediata e incondicionalmente al defensor de los derechos humanos Ahmed Mansoor, cuya vida creemos que puede correr peligro tras las agresiones y las huelgas de hambre emprendidas con el fin de protestar contra las condiciones deplorables e inhumanas que sufre en prisión.

Por favor agregue su firma a esta carta al final de esta página o en el siguiente enlace (en inglés) antes del 14 de octubre:  http://eepurl.com/gFtjJr

Puede encontrar información sobre las protestas en todo el mundo (NYC, DC, Toronto, Londres y más) en inglés en: https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofAhmedMansoor/

 في 22 أكتوبر/تشرين الأول، سيبلغ أحمد 50 عاماً وهو في السجن، لذلك قمنا بتنظيم سلسلة من الإجراأت للمساعدة في إطلاق سراح أحمد وتقديم الأمنيات له عن طريق الوسوم

#FreeAhmed و#BirthdayWishes4Ahmed

لقد أدانته السلطات الإماراتية وحُكم عليه بالسجن 10 سنوات بسبب عمله في مجال حقوق الإنسان وممارسته حقه في حرية التعبير. نحن نبحث عن موقعين على الرسالة المشتركة التي تدعو حكومة الإمارات إلى الإفراج فوراً ودون شرط عن المدافع عن حقوق الإنسان أحمد منصور، حيث أن حياته في خطر بعد تعرضه للضرب وإضرابه المتكرر عن الطعام للاحتجاج على ظروف السجن المزرية وغير الإنسانية

يرجى توقيع هذه الرسالة المفتوحة في أسفل هذه الصفحة أو على هذا الرابط بحلول 14 أكتوبر

يمكنكم العثور على معلومات حول الاحتجاجات في جميع أنحاء العالم (نيويورك، واشنطن، تورنتو، لندن وغيرهم) باللغة الإنجليزية على

https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofAhmedMansoor/

Imprisoned human rights defender and blogger Ahmed Mansoor has been on hunger strike since 17 March 2019 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and is in very poor condition. He started the hunger strike to protest poor prison conditions and his unfair trial which led to a ten-year prison sentence for his human rights activities. We call on the UAE to immediately and unconditionally release Mansoor, and other unlawfully detained human rights defenders.

Freedom of expression must be upheld at all times, not only tolerated during Hay Festival Abu Dhabi

Arabic

As the Hay Festival Abu Dhabi opens on 25-28 February 2020 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we the undersigned call on the Emirati authorities to demonstrate their respect for the right to freedom of expression by freeing all human rights defenders imprisoned for expressing themselves peacefully online, including academics, writers, a poet and lawyers. In the context of the Hay Festival, the UAE’s Ministry of Tolerance is promoting a platform for freedom of expression, while keeping behind bars Emirati citizens and residents who shared their own views and opinions. We support the efforts of festival participants to speak up in favour of all those whose voices have been silenced in the UAE. We further support calls for the UAE authorities to comply with international standards for prisoners, including by allowing prisoners of conscience to receive books and reading materials.

The country’s most prominent human rights defender, Ahmed Mansoor, is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted on the spurious charge of “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols including its leaders” in reprisal for his peaceful human rights activism, including posts on social media.

Mansoor is being held in solitary confinement in an isolation ward in Al-Sadr prison, Abu Dhabi, in dire conditions with no bed or books. In the nearly three years since his arrest in March 2017, he has only been permitted to leave his small cell for a handful of family visits, and only once has he been allowed outside to the prison sports yard for fresh air. In protest, he went on two separate hunger strikes which have harmed his health - harm which has been exacerbated by the lack of adequate medical care. By holding Mansoor in such appalling conditions, the UAE authorities are violating the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment under international law. We urge the Emirati authorities to comply with international law and we appeal to the humanity of members of the government to provide Mansoor with acceptable conditions until he is released.

Mansoor, who has four young sons, is also an engineer and a poet. He serves on the advisory boards of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. In October 2015, Mansoor gained international recognition for his vital work when he received the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.

Mansoor undertook a month-long hunger strike in March 2019 to protest his punitive prison conditions, arbitrary detention, and unfair conviction. In May, seven United Nations independent experts expressed grave concern about Mansoor. Again, in early September 2019, after being tortured through beatings by prison guards, he began a second hunger strike. Due to the lack of independent human rights NGOs in the country, it is very difficult to obtain news about his current situation, including whether or not he remains on the hunger strike since the last report that he was still not eating solid food in January 2020, leaving him unable to walk.

In October 2019, over 140 NGOs worldwide appealed to the UAE authorities to free Ahmed Mansoor, who spent his 50th birthday in isolation and on hunger strike.

Other prisoners have been tortured in prison in the UAE. A Polish fitness expert, Artur Ligęska, was held in the same isolation ward as Mansoor, in conditions he described as “medieval”. After his charges were dismissed and he was freed in May 2019, Ligęska wrote a book in which he recounted the prison conditions in Al-Sadr’s isolation wing, where prisoners were held without running water for many months in very unhygienic conditions, and some were subjected to torture, abuse and sexual assault. He was instrumental in getting the news about Mansoor’s hunger strike out to the world from prison in March 2019, at great personal risk.

Other human rights defenders have faced similar mistreatment in prison, where they are often held in isolation, resorting to hunger strikes to try to bring attention to their unjust imprisonment and ill-treatment in detention.

Human rights lawyer Dr Mohammed Al-Roken, who has been detained since July 2012 solely for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association, including through his work as a lawyer, is serving a 10-year prison sentence for signing - along with 132 other people - an online petition calling for political reform. He was convicted and sentenced following a grossly unfair mass trial of 94 people (known as the “UAE 94” trial) including human rights lawyers, judges and student activists. Among them, was another human rights lawyer, Dr Mohammed Al-Mansoori who was also arrested in July 2012 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Dr Al-Mansoori had not been allowed to contact his family for over a year, and was only permitted to do so recently. Both men are being held in Al-Razeen prison, a maximum-security prison in the desert of Abu Dhabi, which is used to hold activists, government critics, and human rights defenders. They face arbitrary and unlawful disciplinary measures, such as solitary confinement, deprivation of family visits, and intrusive body searches.

Dr Al-Roken was a member of the International Association of Lawyers (UIA) and the International Bar Association, and both Dr Al-Roken and Dr Al-Mansoori served as president of the UAE’s Jurists Association before its arbitrary dissolution by the Emirati authorities in 2011. Dr Al-Roken has authored books on human rights, constitutional law, and counterterrorism. He dedicated his career to providing legal assistance to victims of human rights violations in the UAE, for which he was awarded the Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize in 2017. Over two dozen NGOs called for his release in November 2019.

Academic and economist Dr. Nasser Bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of the Paris-Sorbonne University, was sentenced on 29 March 2017 to 10 years in prison for critical comments he made online about human rights violations in the UAE and Egypt.

In a letter written from prison, Dr. Bin Ghaith stated that “the verdict proves that there is no place for freedom of speech in this country” and announced that he would begin a hunger strike until he was released unconditionally. He has also undertaken subsequent hunger strikes to protest conditions in Al-Razeen prison, including to demand his immediate release following the pardon of British academic Matthew Hedges on 26 November 2018, a week after he was sentenced to life in prison on spying allegations. Hedges was held, mainly incommunicado and in degrading and inhuman conditions for seven months, until he faced an unfair trial on charges of spying for the United Kingdom government.

In October 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution, calling on the UAE to, among other demands, stop all forms of harassment and immediately lift the travel ban against human rights defenders, and urging the authorities to “guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in the UAE are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities, both inside and outside the country, without fear of reprisals”.

The Hay Festival Abu Dhabi is supported by the UAE’s Ministry of Tolerance, in a country that does not tolerate dissenting voices. Regrettably, the UAE government devotes more effort to concealing its human rights abuses than to addressing them and invests heavily in the funding and sponsorship of institutions, events and initiatives that are aimed at projecting a favourable image to the outside world.

With the world’s eyes on the Hay Festival Abu Dhabi, we urge the Emirati government to consider using this opportunity to unconditionally release our jailed friends and colleagues, and in the interim, to at least allow prisoners of conscience to receive books and reading materials, to have regular visits with family, to be allowed outside of their isolation cells to visit the canteen or go outside in the sun. In particular, we ask that Ahmed Mansoor be given a bed and a mattress so that he no longer has to sleep on the floor, and that prison officials cease punishing him for public appeals that are made on his behalf. We ask the authorities to improve their prison conditions as a sign of goodwill and respect for people who wish to organise and participate in events in the UAE, such as the Hay Festival Abu Dhabi or the upcoming Expo 2020 Dubai, in the future. By doing so, the UAE would demonstrate that the Hay Festival is an opportunity to back up its promise of tolerance with actions that include the courageous contributors to freedom of expression who live in the country.

Signatories:

Access Now
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain

Amnesty International

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information

Association for Victims of Torture in the UAE 

Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC)

Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)

Campaign to FreeLatifa

CIVICUS

Committee to Protect Liberties and Human Rights in Tunisia

Detained in Dubai

Detained International

Electronic Frontier Foundation

European Center for Democracy and Human Rights 

FIDH, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Front Line Defenders

Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)

IFEX

International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE

International Centre for Justice and Human Rights 

International Press Institute (IPI)

International Publishers Association (IPA)

International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)

Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada 

Maharat Foundation

MENA Rights Group

No Peace Without Justice 

Norwegian PEN

PEN America

PEN International

Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)

Rights Realization Centre

Tunisian Association for the Defense of Individual Liberties

Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights

Tunis Center for Press Freedom

Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State, Tunisia

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

April Alderdice, CEO MicroEnergy Credits

Fadi Al-Qadi, author and MENA human rights expert

Noam Chomsky, Professor

Ronald Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto

Brian Dooley, human rights advocate

Drewery Dyke, human rights advocate

Jonathan Emmett, author

Stephen Fry, author and presenter

Ahmed Galai, Ex-Vice President of the Tunisian Human Rights League (member of the National Dialogue Quartet, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2015)

Melanie Gingell, human rights lawyer

Chris Haughton, author

Matthew Hedges, PhD candidate and former prisoner in the UAE

Bill Law, journalist

Artur Ligęska, Polish activist and former prisoner in the UAE

Danielle Maisano, novelist, poet and activist

Michael Mansfield QC, Barrister

Albert Pellicer, poet and lecturer

Simone Theiss, human rights advocate

Joint letter calling on the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to intervene immediately in favour of the release of prisoners of conscience.

Your Highness,

We, the undersigned organisations, write to you to urge Your Highness to release prisoners of conscience in UAE prisons and to address this issue decisively.

We appeal to Your Highness as President of the United Arab Emirates to treat the issue of prisoners of conscience as a high priority and consider it an urgent humanitarian situation that requires your direct and immediate intervention.

Your Highness- the absence of such policies, rooted in human rights standards, is a stain on the country’s international reputation and runs counter to the Emirati government's image of the UAE as a country that believes in the values of tolerance and openness. It is the primary responsibility of Your Highness to uphold constitutional principles by putting an end to all human rights violations.

We call on Your Highness to assume full moral and legal obligations and to work for the respect of human rights. Therefore, we appeal to you not only to release all prisoners of conscience in UAE jails but also to ensure that such violations will not be repeated.

Pending their release, we hope that Your Highness will work to demonstrate your commitment to human rights and compliance with international standards for prisoners by granting prisoners of conscience their rights, such as medical care and regular family visits, and ending all forms of violations they are being exposed to.

With great respect and appreciation

Signatories

1. ALQST for Human Rights
2. Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
3. CIVICUS
4. Emirates Detainees Advocacy Centre
5. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor
6. European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
7. FEMENA
8. Geneva council for rights and liberties
9. Gulf Centre for Human Rights
10. HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement
11. International Campaign for Justice and Human Rights
12. International Centre for Justice and Human Rights
13. MENA Rights group
14. Skyline International for Human Rights

38th Session of UN Human Rights Council
Adoption of the UPR report of the United Arab Emirates 

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights, the International Service for Human Rights and CIVICUS welcome the chance to engage in the process of the UAE’s UPR. However, we are deeply dismayed that having gone through the UPR process for the third time, the conditions under which civil society operate are worsening, despite it being clearly an issue of concern in the last review.

Since its last review, the UAE has not implemented any of the 17 recommendations relating to civic space. We regret that no recommendations pertaining to the full protection of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly were accepted by the government.

Mr. President, the UAE continues to use Federal Law 6 of 1974 Concerning Public Utility Associations to interfere in the operations of civil society organisations. The law goes as far as allowing the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to send representatives to monitor meetings of CSOs.

The UAE continues to use anti-terror laws to punish human rights defenders. The “’UAE94” - a group of political activists, human rights defenders, lawyers, academics, teachers and students – are still serving heavy sentences handed down in 2013, on spurious charges of attempting to overthrow the government.

Journalists and researchers are still arrested, deported and jailed for carrying out their work. Ahmed Mansoor, who was jailed in 2017 for making posts on social media, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last month. Academic Nasser Bin Ghaith is also serving a 10-year prison sentence after he was arrested in 2015 for making posts on social media and continues to be denied access to medical treatment. Both men are believed to be held in solitary confinement.

We call on the Government of the UAE to cease persecuting human rights defenders, reverse these draconian laws and create an enabling environment for civil society.