Amnesty International call for dissidents' release from UAE jails

Amnesty International lays out human rights violations and concerns that it has documented in the UAE since the conclusion of its last UPR in June 2018, and evaluates the implementation of recommendations made to the UAE in the previous UPR.

With regard to the human rights situation on the ground, Amnesty International raises concern about, in particular, the ongoing imprisonment and arbitrary detention of human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience, the racist mass deportation of hundreds of African nationals in summer 2021, continuing cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, and the presence of a large stateless population born in the UAE who are denied the right to a nationality and are excluded from the access to state-funded education and healthcare that is provided to Emirati nationals.

Many of the recommendations from the previous UPR called for the UAE to guarantee freedom of expression and to allow human rights defenders to pursue their work without fear or intimidation.

 No progress has been made in these areas, as legal reforms that raised an opportunity to eliminate restrictions on freedom of expression, such as the adoption of a new criminal code in 2021, were instead used to maintain and consolidate restrictions on criticism of the country’s rulers and authorities, and Emirati human rights defenders remain imprisoned.