United Arab Emirates: Experts dismayed by life sentences handed down to human rights defenders

GENEVA  – Independent experts were shocked at the sentencing to life imprisonment of 43 people, including human rights defenders and activists on 10 July 2024 by the Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal.

The 43 defendants were part of the so-called “UAE 84” group who were subject to mass trials. They were recently convicted to life imprisonment for establishing a terrorist organisation under the 2014 Counter-terrorism Law for acts dating back to the Arab Spring (2010-2011). Most of them had already spent a decade in prison for national security-related offences under the Criminal Code for acts allegedly committed during the same period.

Among those 43, are included the human rights defenders Mohamed Abdullah Al-Roken, who completed his original prison sentence in 2022 but remained in detention; as well as Hadif Rashed Abdullah al-Owais, and Salim Hamdoon al-Shahhi who were due to be released in 2023 and 2022 respectively. The human rights defender Mohammed Ali Saleh al-Mansori is also part of the 43 defendants. He completed his sentence on 16 July 2023 but remains detained.

In addition to the 43 life sentences handed out, 10 other individuals have been sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison on charges of “co-operating with al-Islah” and money laundering under the counterterrorism legal framework in force in the country.

“The United Arab Emirates must ensure that national counterterrorism legislation does not unnecessarily and disproportionately restrain civil society and civic space. The authorities must immediately release these people and bring the country’s counter-terrorism legislation fully in line with international law,” the experts said.

“These individuals should never have been detained in the first place for legitimately exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms,” they said, noting that some of these detentions have been declared arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2013 and 2023.

“Many Governments are failing in their legal and moral obligations by sentencing human rights defenders to long terms in prison. Targeting human rights defenders with long jail terms destroys lives, families and communities. States should end this unjustifiable, indefensible and contemptible practice immediately and forever,” they continued, recalling the thematic report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.

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.

“We remain extremely concerned about the unfair mass trial and lack of due process guarantees,” the experts said. “The indictment, charges, defence lawyers and names of defendants were reportedly kept secret. Defence lawyers were reportedly not able to freely access case files and other court documents, and some were only able to view the files on a screen in a secure room, under the supervision of security officers, without receiving either physical or electronic copies, and were only permitted to take handwritten notes”, the experts noted.

The experts recalled that human rights experts previously warned that the 2014 Counter-Terrorism Law lacked legal certainty, jeopardised fundamental rights and did not appear to meet the required thresholds of legality, necessity, proportionality and non-discrimination under international law.

Additionally, many of the defendants had been subjected to enforced disappearance, solitary confinement and incommunicado detention, some for over a year and often in abusive detention conditions.

The experts are in contact with the authorities on this matter and have already shared their concerns publicly earlier this year.