Articles for United Arab Emirates

On November 9, 2017, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published an Opinion calling for the immediate release of Taysir Salman, a 44-year-old Jordanian journalist who has been detained in the UAE since 2015 – during which time he was disappeared for 80 days – as a result of a Facebook post.

On October 5, 2017, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the Special Rapporteur on the right to education concerning the cases of 119 Qatari citizens who have been prevented from pursuing their education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a result of the diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

On September 15, 2017, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued an Opinion on the case of a Lebanese citizen, Ahmed Mekkaoui, in which the UN experts qualified his detention as arbitrary and called for his immediate release.

The UAE’s Lack of Cooperation with the United Nations

On 29 June 2017, Alkarama submitted its report on the human rights situation in the United Arab Emirates to the Human Rights Council, in view of the UAE’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) which will be held in January 2018.

Prosecuted for having exercised his right to freedom of expression…

On 30 March, Alkarama and the International Center for Justice and Human Rights have solicited the urgent intervention of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding the case of UAE blogger and human rights defender Osama Al Najjar, who was transferred from Al Rezeen Prison to a “counselling centre”, where he is currently detained against his will and despite the fact that he had completed his three-year prison sentence on 17 March 2017.

On 15 March 2017, Jordanian journalist Taysir Salman, also known as Taysir Al Najjar, was sentenced by the Federal Appeals Court of Abu Dhabi to three years in prison for having violated the cybercrime law by posting critical statements of the UAE’s support to Egypt’s action in Gaza on Facebook.

On 4 December 2016, Lebanese citizen, Ahmed Mekkaoui was sentenced by the UAE State Security Circuit of the Federal Supreme Court to 15 years in prison on the basis of confessions that were previously extracted under horrific acts of torture.