UAE 'retaliates' against jailed activist Ahmed Mansoor for exposing abuses

United Arab Emirates (UAE) prison authorities retaliated against prominent activist Ahmed Mansoor after the publication of letters he wrote detailing his mistreatment in jail.

The human rights defender is serving a 10-year sentence on charges relating to his activism, including "insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols including its leaders", and "seeking to damage the relationship of the UAE with its neighbours by publishing false reports and information on social media". 

The prison letters, dated back in November 2020, paint a grim image of Mansoor's conditions in jail.

They reveal that he has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest in 2017, deprived of basic necessities and cut off from the outside world as well as fellow prisoners.

The activist's phone privileges and visitation rights are severely restricted. Prison guards have stripped his cell bare, confiscating his clothes, mattress, blankets and towels - leaving Mansoor with one shirt whose sleeves had been ripped off.

"What's worse, they cut off hot water from my cell during the extremely cold winter in the desert," one of the letters read.

"And they issued a directive that was hung in the police room to deprive me of any clothes with long sleeves as well [as] personal hygiene products and hot tea that gets served with some meals."

The cold, Mansoor wrote, led to various health issues, including hypertension and frequent fevers.

The prison letters appear to confirm the findings of a HRW report released in January 2021.

"He sleeps on the floor, denied a mattress or pillow, between the four walls of a tiny solitary cell in a desert prison in the United Arab Emirates, a country which zealously strives to portray itself as tolerant and rights-respecting," the report said.