Rights groups call for the release of 84 human rights defendants after a trial marked by severe irregularities and unjust sentences.
This statement was originally published on gc4hr.org on 2 August 2024.
Human rights defenders and political dissidents must be freed
The United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s mass trial of 84 human rights defenders and political dissidents was fundamentally unfair, according to the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center (EDAC) and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), who call for the immediate release of all those imprisoned. On 10 July 2024, the Abu Dhabi Federal Appeals Court meted out sentences ranging from between 10 years to life in prison for 53 defendants in the UAE’s second largest unfair mass trial, which is known as the UAE84 case.
Sources close to the case have provided more details about sentences handed down since the verdict was announced, which includes news that two prominent human rights defenders were among five people sentenced to 15 years in prison, in addition to other defendants from the previous mass trial known as the “UAE94” case who received life sentences, including many who remain in prison past the end of their previous sentences.
In December 2023, while hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Emirati authorities brought charges against at least 84 defendants in retaliation for forming an independent advocacy group in 2010, many of whom had already been serving prison sentences for the same or similar offences.
In January 2024, Emirati authorities accused the 84 defendants of “establishing and managing a clandestine terrorist organisation in the UAE known as the ‘Justice and Dignity Committee’.” The charges were laid under the UAE’s abusive 2014 counterterrorism law, which sets out punishments of up to life in prison and even death for anyone who sets up, organises, or runs such an organisation.
On 10 July 2024, prominent human rights defenders Abulsalam Darwish Al-Marzouqi, Sultan Bin Kayed Al-Qasimi, Dr. Mohammed Al-Roken, Dr. Mohammed Al-Mansoori, and Sheikh Mohammed Abdulrazzaq Al-Siddiq were among 43 people sentenced to life in prison, which is tantamount to 25 years in prison, “for the crime of establishing, founding and managing” the Justice and Dignity Committee, allegedly “with the aim of committing terrorist acts on the country’s soil,” according to the official WAM news agency. Dr. Al-Roken and Dr. Al-Mansoori are both human rights lawyers. All five are currently being held in prison past the end of their sentences.
In addition, exiled human rights defenders Hamad Al-Shamsi and Mohammed Al-Saqer were sentenced to life in prison in absentia.
According to reliable sources, Ahmed Mansoor, who is on the Board of GCHR and the MENA Division Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch, and academic Dr. Nasser Bin Ghaith were both among the five people sentenced to 15 years in prison on allegations of “cooperating with the terrorist organisation and supporting it in articles and tweets they published on social media, knowing its anti-state objectives.” Both are currently serving unjust 10-year sentences for their human rights advocacy.
Among the other defendants, another five were sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined ten million dirhams for “money-laundering crimes resulting from crimes of establishing, founding and financing a terrorist organisation.” One person was acquitted, and charges were dismissed against a further 24 people in the case.
In addition, six companies and their officials were convicted. According to WAM, the court fined six companies 20 million dirhams, dissolved and closed their headquarters, and confiscated all their funds and rights for the crime of “money-laundering” and “financing a terrorist organisation.”
The prosecutor did not provide any new evidence for the UAE84 case, and the evidence cited in the hearings was based entirely on the UAE94 trial, according to a report published by EDAC and GCHR detailing the trial’s irregularities. During the UAE94 trial, at least 60 of the defendants were already convicted in 2013 for their involvement with the Justice and Dignity Committee, including Al-Marzouqi and Al-Qasimi, according to EDAC.
In a statement on 30 July 2024, 13 United Nations experts said, “The UAE authorities maintain that the latest charges were ‘materially distinct’ from those brought in 2013, which did not include accusations of ‘financing a terrorist organisation.’ Nevertheless, the alleged acts took place before the enactment of the 2014 Counter-Terrorist Law, and, therefore, this decision seems to violate international prohibitions on double jeopardy and the non-retroactivity of criminal law.”
According to sources close to the case, the verdicts are required to be appealed within 30 days of the sentencing, but in a serious violation of the rights to a fair trial, the judicial authorities have so far refused to give the defence lawyers the full case files so that the defendants can study the evidence used against them in order to lodge their appeals.
Informed sources believe that the authorities’ purpose in not giving defence lawyers the full case files is to prevent them from having the opportunity to write a strong appeal, as well as to prevent them from reviewing the evidence and providing it to the defendants. There is serious concern that the court will only provide some very scarce information about the case at the last minute in order to make it more likely for the appeal to be easily rejected by the court.
The State Security Chamber of the Supreme Court will take over the case if it is overturned.
In further worrisome news, the defendants are still being held in solitary confinement, in violation of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules). As previously reported, during the trial, defendants have repeatedly described abusive detention conditions, including physical assaults, lack of access to medical care and required medicines, incessant loud music, and forced nudity.
Sources reported that the defendants continue to be denied the right to speak to their families or contact their lawyers, who have refused to disclose the details of the charges against them due to the court’s ban on defence lawyers speaking about the case.
Recommendations:
Therefore, the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights call on the Emirati authorities to immediately release the case files to the lawyers of the defendants so they may appeal the charges.
We further call on the Emirati authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those sentenced in this case, which was not conducted according to international standards of fair trial.
We also call on the Emirati authorities to investigate the alleged abusive conditions, and hold to account those responsible for any unlawful acts.
Finally, while they remain in prison, all defendants in the case must be removed from solitary confinement, given access to their lawyers and families, and provided with medical care, as mandated by the UN Nelson Mandela Rules.
