23 rights groups call on UAE to release unjustly imprisoned ahead of COP28

Over 20 human rights organisations have signed a joint statement calling on the UAE to release all unjustly imprisoned detainees before the start of COP28 scheduled to be held in Dubai at the end of the year.

At least 58 people are detained in the UAE despite completing their prison sentences, including Ahmed Mansoor and Dr Nasser Bin Ghaith.

Signatories to the open letter, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Front Line Defenders, also called on the Gulf State to stop monitoring government critics, using repressive legislation to imprison dissidents and deny peaceful assembly.

Authorities use a vague definition of terrorism to indefinitely detain people beyond the end of their sentences, claiming they are a threat to state security and need rehabilitation.

READ: UAE pushing Tunisia to normalise with Israel, Algeria official says

Most of the people still in prison are part of the UAE94 group – 94 lawyers, academics and activists convicted in a controversial trial in 2013 of plotting to overthrow the government. The case was widely criticised by the UN and other human rights bodies.

In June, the UAE released a document to show that 12 of these dissidents were being held “on discriminatory grounds, owing to their status as human rights defenders.”

Many have been denied visits and phone calls with their families.

Signatories to the open letter are calling on the US, the UK, Canada, and members of the EU to take steps towards their immediate release and end grave human rights abuses in the UAE.

There is a growing chorus of voices calling on states attending the climate conference in Dubai to put pressure on the UAE to clean up its human rights record and its environmental record.

Last year there were similar calls for Egypt to reform its human rights record as the host of COP27.

Rights groups and activists accused Egypt of greenwashing ahead of the climate change conference and called on world leaders attending to call the Egyptian government out over rights abuses, particularly its treatment of political prisoners.