Voices Raised for Nasser bin Gaith's Release

Online activists have launched a campaign for the release of dr. Nasser bin Ghaith who has been held in UAE jails since 2015 for freedom of speech charges.

Dr bin Ghaith was accused of posting information “intended to damage the UAE” after he claimed that he was tortured during an earlier trial in 2011. 

Further charges were made in connection with critical comments he made on social media about the Egyption security forces’ mass killing of demonstrators at Raba’a Square in August 2013. The irony lies in the fact that an Egyptian judge was appointed to decide his case at the Abu Dhabi Appeals Court. 

In the three years since his trial, he has undertaken three separate hunger strikes in protest against his unjust sentence and the torture and ill-treatment he is subjected to in Abu Dhabi’s al-Razeen prison. 

His current physical and psychological conditions are consequently very poor. He has lost a significant amount of weight, much of his eyesight and in the past, has been too weak to stand up and walk unaided. He also suffers from high blood pressure. 

However, he continues to be denied access to appropriate medical care and has frequently been denied vital medicine, such as his blood pressure medication. He is highly vulnerable, therefore, amid the global Covid-19 outbreak.