The sentences handed down by the Abu Dhabi Federal Attraction Court came in a case described by the UAE government as involving the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamist group declared a terrorist group by the emirate. Activists, on the other hand, condemned the case as targeting dissidents, a point that drew attention and protests at the UN COP28 environment talks held in Dubai in November.
The state-run WAM information company reported the verdict, with close human rights activists saying the sentence was passed down unfairly. Five defendants received 15-year sentences while five others received 10-year sentences. WAM reported that the circumstances of all the other 24 defendants were ignored.
The court ruled that those convicted had “acted to create and replicate violent incidents in the country, as have occurred in other Arab states – including protests and clashes between security forces and protesting crowds – which led to There were deaths and injuries and destruction of facilities as well as panic and panic among the people,” WAM said.
The company based the report on false specific evidence, the court cited, linking the perpetrators to violence or the Brotherhood.
The decision, which can also be appealed to the UAE’s Federal Supreme Court, was immediately complained about abroad.
“These excessively long sentences make a mockery of justice and are another nail in the coffin for the UAE’s budding civil society,” said researcher Joy Shea, an expert at Human Rights Watch in the UAE. “The UAE has dragged its most dedicated human rights defenders and members of civil society through a brazenly unfair trial filled with due process violations and allegations of torture.”
Emirates Detainees Advocacy Middle, an advocacy group in exile, reported one by one that the sentences were passed unfairly.
“Sadly, these punishments were completely predictable,” said Mohammed al-Zaabi, the center’s director. “From the very beginning, it was clear that this trial was merely a sham designed to maintain the detention of prisoners of conscience even after their sentences have been completed.”
Amnesty World also criticized the sentencing, saying that the defendants were “held in solitary confinement for long periods of time, deprived of contact with their families and lawyers and subjected to sleep deprivation due to constant exposure to loud music ” It added that those who were subjected to additional efforts were “blocked from obtaining the most basic court documents”.
“The trial was a shameless travesty of justice and violated many basic principles of law, including the principle that you cannot prosecute the same person twice for the same crime, and the principle that you One cannot retroactively punish people under laws that did not exist. At the time of the alleged crime,” said Amnesty World researcher Devin Kenny.
Kenny described some of those tried as “prisoners of conscience and renowned human rights defenders”.
WAM did not determine those who were punished. However, those who have won life sentences include activist Nasser bin Ghaith, who has been in an educational institution since August 2015 because of his social media posts, Shia said.
He was one of dozens of people sentenced in the wake of a sweeping crackdown in the United Arab Emirates following the 2011 Arab Spring protests. Those demonstrations saw Islamists, including Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi in Egypt, rise to power in several Middle Eastern countries.
The Gulf Arab states saw no benefit from the widespread overthrow of their governments and came down heavily on the protesters, appearing disgruntled.
Apart from this, those sentenced on Wednesday also include Ahmed Mansoor, who received the Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders in 2015. Mansour has repeatedly drawn the ire of the government in the UAE by demanding a separate press and democratic government. Independence within the confederacy of 7 sheikhs.
Mansour was targeted with Israeli spyware on his iPhone in 2016, which was likely deployed by the Emirati government, before his arrest in 2017 and his sentencing to ten years in prison for his activism.
During COP28, Amnesty World and Human Rights Watch held a demonstration in which they displayed Mansour’s face at the top of a protest under the watch of Emirati authorities in the UN-administered Blue Zones.
The United Arab Emirates, which is in many respects more socially promiscuous than its central Japanese neighbors, has strict rules governing politics and bans on political events and political parties. This was evident at COP28, where there were no general protests outside the venue because activists were concerned about the vast network of surveillance cameras in the country.
