Rights groups call for release of UAE activists

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have called on the UAE to release nine political activists who it says are being held "solely on account of their affiliation with a non-violent political group and their peaceful criticism of the government". The rights group came the Emirates government is threatening to revoke the citizenship of seven of them because of their political activity. The nine men belong to the Reform and Social Guidance Association (al-Islah), a non-profit organization that advocates greater adherence to Islamic precepts, which the groups say has been engaged in peaceful political debate and discussion in the UAE for many years. ”The UAE authorities need to end this wave of arbitrary arrests,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s deputy Middle East and North Africa programme director. “These men, who have not used or advocated violence, are held solely for exercising their right to freedom of opinion and expression. They are prisoners of conscience and should be released immediately and unconditionally.” The most recent arrest was on 20 April, 2012, when plain-clothes officials from the UAE Amn al-Dawla (State Security) agency detained the chairman of al-Islah, Sheikh Dr Sultan Bin Kayed al-Qasimi. His son, Abdullah Sultan, told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that his 54-year–old father is being held, apparently without a detention order or charge, in the palace of the ruler of the Ras al-Khaimah emirate, who is his father’s cousin. The ruler has told family members that the basis of the detention relates to a ”family matter.” The government claimed through its official news agency in December 2011 that it had stripped six al-Islah members of their UAE citizenship. On April 9, the authorities detained the men -- Dr Ali Hussain al-Hammadi, Dr Shahin Abdullah al-Hosni, Hussein Munif al-Jabri and his brother Hassan Munif al-Jabri; Ibrahim Hassan al-Marzouqi, and Sheikh Mohammad Abdul Razak al-Sediq – when they responded to a summons to appear at an Abu Dhabi office of the interior ministry. One of the lawyers for the detained men told Amnesty and HRW that the authorities said they arrested the six for refusing to sign a pledge to seek another nationality. All six are now held in the al-Shihama deportation centre in Abu Dhabi along with the seventh man, Ahmed Ghaith al-Suwaidi, detained since 26 March. The whereabouts of the ninth man, Dr. Ahmed al-Zaabi, a former judge who was also detained on 26 March, is not clear. None of the men are known to have been charged with any criminal offence. Some of the men were among 130 people who signed a petition in March 2011 seeking political reforms in the UAE. “This wave of detentions against peaceful dissent is a telling indicator of UAE’s deepening abuses of human rights,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director. “Their latest action, against these nine men, has once again shown the UAE government’s intentions to silence anyone who peacefully expresses political opinions.” Independent political activity in the UAE is severely restricted. In the wake of the popular protests since 2011 across the Middle East and North Africa region, a small number of people in the UAE called openly for greater accountability, transparency and democratisation, but allegedly faced repression in a widening crackdown on freedom of expression and association. Following a review of the human rights situation in the UAE by the UN Human Rights Council under the UN’s Universal Periodic Review in December 2008, the government pledged in January 2009, among other things, to ”take concrete measures to limit the number and extent of restrictions on the right to freedom of expression.”