UAE: Rights groups pay tribute to Emirati rights defenders and call for them to be freed during Dubai Expo
During the Dubai Expo, which runs from October 2021 to March 2022, ICFUAE as part of a coalition of human rights groups, is campaigning for the freedom of Emirati human rights defenders, and for justice for women who have been abused in prison, or at the hands of Emirati authorities. Over 80 human rights NGOs signed a letter calling on the UAE to free human rights defenders, including the prominent Emirati poet Ahmed Mansoor, whose birthday it is today.
To mark this occasion, four NGOs, namely Amnesty International, Gulf Centre for Human Rights, ALQST for Human Rights and ICFUAE, gathered today at the Emirati embassy in London to deliver the joint open letter. Meanwhile, the letter was also delivered to the UAE mission to the United Nations in Geneva by GCHR and the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR).
A poet and activist, Ahmed Mansoor was commonly known as the last person to speak out against human rights violations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), until he himself was arbitrarily detained and later sentenced to ten years in prison solely on the basis of his peaceful and legitimate human rights activities.
Earlier this month, at the Alternative Human Rights Expo, over 25 human rights groups paid tribute to Ahmed Mansoor and other human rights defenders from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and called for their release during the Dubai Expo. The event, hosted by Iyad El-Baghdadi and Weaam Youssef, featured human rights defenders, poets, artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers from a dozen countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and beyond.
The goal of the event was to highlight the work of creators from the region who, imprisoned or exiled, will not be given a platform at the Dubai Expo.. They are Ahmed Mansoor from the UAE, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja in Bahrain, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee in Iran, and Alaa Abd El-Fattah and Sanaa Seif in Egypt.
El-Baghdadi, a Palestinian writer and activist who grew up in the UAE, said, “We start our programme from the UAE, where two speakers will be highlighting three human rights stories that will never be mentioned at the Dubai Expo.”
Khalid Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), paid tribute to Ahmed Mansoor, who turns 52 today, by reading some of Mansoor’s poetry, in which he describes seven successive days about a world that he dreams to have. He said: “Without exaggerating his sense or losing his consciousness, Ahmed translates the suffering of the stranger, the non-belonging, and the lack of identity, that human being besieged by all kinds of betrayal, oppression and irrational to the point of superstition.” This video is in Arabic with English subtitles.
Documentary filmmaker Manu Luksch introduced a clip from her film “Sing and Cry, Cry and Sing,” which is an interview with Artur Ligęska, a Polish fitness expert who was sentenced to life in prison in isolation in Al-Sadr prison, where he met Mansoor. In the clip Ligęska talks about singing through the walls with Mansoor, whom he advocated for strongly after his release in 2019. He passed away tragically in May 2021 in Amsterdam. Luksch’s film about Ahmed Mansoor, the “Billion Dollar Dissident”, will be shown in spring 2022.
ICFUAE statement:
Our heart goes out to Ahmed Mansoor and his family on his 52nd birthday. It is a disgrace that he is spending this day alone, in a dark cell without a mattress to sleep on. He is “guilty” of nothing more than peacefully standing up for the rights of others.
His ongoing unjust detention and the inhumane conditions he is being subjected to show the contempt in which the Emirati government holds human rights and those who stand up for them.
With the spotlight on the UAE during the Dubai Expo, Emirati authorities must take this opportunity to prove to the international community goodwill and a commitment to human rights by releasing Ahmed Mansoor.
Take Action!
1. Please sign a petition to help free Emirati human rights defenders, initiated by ICFUAE.
2. Tweet at @HHShkMohd @MohamedBinZayed @AnwarGargash and join 81 NGOs calling for the immediate & unconditional release of @Ahmed_Mansoor & all detained #humanrights activists during #Expo2020. #FreeEmiratiActivists #FreeAhmed #FreeNasser #FreeAlRoken
3. Follow @GulfCentre4HR @ISHRglobal @ICFUAE @AmnestyWB @ALQST_ORG @ECDHRbxl for news of protests and the campaign #FreeEmiratiactivists #altexpohumanrights
4. Check out the videos and materials from the Alternative Human Rights Expo in English and Arabic at https://www.alternativehrexpo.org/
