Articles for United Arab Emirates

On January 5, 2021, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt, signed a “solidarity and stability” agreement, at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Al-Ulah, Saudi Arabia, ending the blockade on Qatar.

December 10, 2020

Research by MENA Rights Group has revealed that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities are using Munasaha centres, or ‘counselling’ centres, to detain critics and activists de facto indefinitely, on broad and vague legal grounds.

The UAE authorities have failed to take the necessary measures to address the COVID-19 outbreak in Al Wathba prison, Abu Dhabi, putting the health and life of prisoners at serious risk. On June 12, 2020, MENA Rights Group submitted an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, expressing concerns regarding the prisoners’ lack of access to medical care and poor prison conditions.

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.

Excellencies,

We, the undersigned, call on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to immediately and unconditionally release prominent human rights defender Dr Mohammed Al-Roken, arbitrarily detained since 2012 solely for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association, including through his work as a human rights lawyer.

Dear participants of the World Tolerance Summit,

We, the undersigned, call on all participants and speakers at the World Tolerance Summit taking place in Dubai on November 13 and 14 to withdraw from the event, which promotes a misleading image of the United Arab Emirates as a model of tolerance and openness. This is the second World Tolerance Summit, initiated in 2018 to “strengthen the UAE’s position as a model of co-existence and cultural tolerance around the world.”

October 16, 2019

Your Excellency, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan,