4 Years On, Ahmed Mansoor Remains Unjustly Imprisoned in the UAE
Saturday, March 20, 2021, marks the four-year anniversary of the detention of Emirati human rights defender, Ahmed Mansoor. ICFUAE reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release four years after his arbitrary arrest.
Ahmed Mansoor is one of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) most prominent human rights activists, known for his dedication to advocating for human rights in the UAE and the broader MENA region. In a midnight raid on March 20, 2017, Emirati security forces stormed Mansoor’s house and arrested him. For over a year after his arrest, he was detained in an undisclosed location with no access to a lawyer.
In May 2018 after a closed hearing, Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges based on his peaceful criticism of the UAE government and his calls for human rights reform. The state security prosecution charged him with ‘defaming the UAE through social media channels’ under the 2012 cybercrime law, specifically for his criticisms of rights violations in Egypt and Yemen and criticism of UAE’s prosecutions of other activists for speech ‘crimes’.
Since his arrest, Mansoor has been kept in solitary confinement in al Sadr prison in Abu Dhabi. He is being held in a 2m x 2m cell with no bed, mattress or means to distract himself, such as books, a TV or radio. In protest of his deplorable detention conditions, Mansoor went on two hunger strikes in 2019, which successfully convinced authorities to allow him to contact close family members and spend limited time outdoors.
Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch published a report that disclosed the brutality of Mansoor’s imprisonment. For example, the report reiterated that he has spent all four years in indefinite solitary detention, which is a practice amounting to torture. Additionally, the report confirmed that he does not have a mattress to sleep on and that the prison wardens cut off his hot water supply during the winter months. This is increasingly concerning given the heightened vulnerability of Mansoor to Covid-19, who has developed high blood pressure while imprisoned.
Ahmed Mansoor’s detention has garnered a great deal of condemnation from civil society organisations and the international community. Most recently in February 2021, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, denounced the UAE’s long-term imprisonment of three human rights activists, including Ahmed Mansoor. She called on the Emirati government to release human right defenders so that they could ‘continue their meaningful and necessary human rights work’.
ICFUAE Statement:
ICFUAE is saddened that another year has gone by of Ahmed Mansoor’s detention without any indication of his liberation. On today’s fourth anniversary of his unjust detention in the UAE, it is crucial for the Emirati authorities to immediately and unconditionally release him.
Mansoor’s imprisonment is a direct reflection of the UAE government’s continuous systemic oppression of political dissidents. The authorities need to recognise its constitutional responsibility to uphold and respect human rights, which extends to its treatment of those detained. Given the deterioration of Mansoor’s health since his arrest, the UAE prison system needs to do more to ensure the health and safety of its detainees.
Ahmed Mansoor’s ongoing unlawful detention in solitary confinement is nothing but a shameful dichotomy of his strive to fight for better human rights within the UAE. He must be freed immediately if the UAE wants to demonstrate its true commitment to human rights.
