Forty-three people were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday and several other defendants received longer terms in a mass trial of dissidents in the United Arab Emirates that has been widely criticised by activists abroad.
The ruling by the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal concerns a case that the UAE government has described as involving the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamic organisation that the country has declared a terrorist organisation, but activists denounced it as targeting dissidents, which gained attention and sparked protests at the UN COP28 climate change conference in Dubai in November.
State news agency WAM reported the verdict after human rights activists announced the ruling. Five defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison, while the other five were given 10 years. The cases against the other 24 defendants were dismissed, WAM reported.
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The court found that those convicted “incited and attempted to replicate violent events in the country, including protests and clashes between security forces and protesting crowds similar to those seen in other Arab countries, resulting in casualties, destruction of property and spreading panic and fear among the people,” WAM reported.
The station reported that the court had not presented any concrete evidence showing that those convicted had links to violence or the Brotherhood.
The ruling can be appealed to the UAE Federal Supreme Court, but it drew immediate criticism abroad.
“These excessively long sentences make a mockery of justice and further put an end to the UAE’s budding civil society,” said Joey See, UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The UAE has dragged some of its most committed human rights defenders and members of civil society into a shamelessly unfair trial riddled with due process violations and allegations of torture.”
FILE – Activists hold placards as they demonstrate for jailed Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and jailed activist Mohammed al-Siddiq during the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023. A mass trial of dissidents in the United Arab Emirates that has been widely criticized abroad ended on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, with dozens receiving life sentences, activists said. (AP Photo/Rafic Maqbool, File)
The Emirates Detainee Support Centre, an advocacy group in exile, reported separately that the sentence had been handed down.
“Unfortunately, these sentences were entirely predictable,” said Mohammed Al-Zabi, the center’s director. “It was clear from the beginning that the trials were merely a pretense to continue the detention of prisoners of conscience after they had served their sentences.”
Amnesty International also criticised the sentence, saying the defendants had been “held in solitary confinement for long periods, deprived of access to family and lawyers, and subjected to constant loud music and sleep deprivation”, and that those on trial were “denied access to the most basic court documents”.
“This trial is a shameless parody of justice and violates several fundamental principles of law, including the principle that the same person cannot be tried twice for the same crime and that someone cannot be punished retroactively under laws that did not exist at the time they were accused,” said Devin Kenny, a researcher at Amnesty International.
Mr Kenney described some of those on trial as “prisoners of conscience and prominent human rights defenders”.
WAM did not reveal the names of those sentenced, but Shea said those receiving life sentences included Nasser bin Ghaith, an activist and scholar who has been detained since August 2015 for social media posts.
He was one of dozens of people convicted following a widespread crackdown in the UAE following the 2011 Arab Spring protests, which saw Islamists, including Egyptian Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi, rise to power in several Middle Eastern countries.
While there have been no popular toppling of governments in the Gulf Arab states, there has been repression of demonstrators and perceived opponents.
Among those likely to be sentenced on Wednesday is Ahmed Mansour, who received the Martin Ennals Prize for human rights defenders in 2015. Mansour has repeatedly drawn the ire of UAE authorities for his campaigns for press freedom and democratic freedoms in the federation of seven emirates.
Mansour had Israeli spyware planted on his iPhone in 2016, likely by the UAE government before he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2017 for his activism.
During COP28, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch held protests in the UN-controlled Blue Zone at the summit site, holding up Mansour’s face under heavy guard by UAE officials.
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The UAE is in many ways socially liberal compared to its Middle Eastern neighbors, but it has strict laws restricting expression and bans political parties and trade unions. That was on display at COP28, where there were no typical protests outside the venue because activists were concerned about the country’s extensive surveillance camera network.
