The United Arab Emirates continues its repressive policies

The UAE continues to implement its systematic repressive policies, which include targeting human rights activists and restricting public freedoms. The authorities still refuse to release 48 prisoners of conscience and deliberately hold them in detention despite the completion of their sentences. Many of those unreleased are part of a group of prisoners collectively famously known as the UAE94, who were arrested in 2012 and sentenced from seven to fifteen years in prison during a grossly unfair trial in 2013 for their pro-democracy activities.

Women prisoners of conscience:

listed below, are the names of two women prisoners of conscience, who have completed their original sentences, and in order to keep them in prison in reprisal for speaking out about their terrible conditions, a new fabricated charge was brought against them in an unfair trial:

1. Amina Al-Abdouli

She was arrested on 19 November 2015, and on 31 October 2016, she was sentenced to five years in prison. Her sentence expired on 19 November 2020. New false charges were brought against her.

2. Maryam Al-Balushi

She was arrested on 19 November 2015, and on 22 February 2017, she was sentenced to five years in prison. Her sentence expired on 19 November 2020. New false charges were brought against her.

On 28 April 2021, the Federal Court of Appeal issued a three-year prison sentence for Al-Abdouli and Al-Balushi in case no. 61 of 2021, on the charge of allegedly “publishing false information disturbing public order”.

SOHRI calls on the international community, especially governments that have influence in the UAE, such as the United States of America, Great Britain, Canada and the members of the European Union, to intervene immediately to seek an end to these grave violations and to visit all detainees listed in this appeal, to ensure their health and physical safety, and obtain their immediate and unconditional release.