ICJHR's Report On the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for the 93rd session, 2017

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will review, at its 93rd session meeting in Geneva on 7 and 8 August, the report regarding the United Arab Emirates. The International Center for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR) issued a parallel report to the committee in July 2017 in the framework of the periodic report that will address the UAE's progress in activating the articles of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The report of the International Center for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR) came in thirteen pages and reviewed the articles of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the commitment and respect of the UAE authorities to the provisions of the Convention.

The ICJHR report monitored the UAE authorities’ implication in assigning foreigners to violate human rights and fundamental freedoms which harms the peaceful coexistence between races. It also documented the deputation of foreign nationals in the security and judiciary fields in order to abuse and violate the rights of political activists, lawyers and bloggers; in fact, the ICJHR protested against these procedures in the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of the Judiciary and Attorney Gabriela Knoll after her visit to the United Arab Emirates on 27 January 2014.

The report also addressed the United Arab Emirates failure to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which denies the foreigners, different races and ethnicities within the UAE of the guarantees provided by these human rights covenants.

The ICJHR’s report also referred to the campaign of arbitrary arrests of foreigners following the Arab Spring, which included 13 Egyptians from the 21st of November 2012 until January 2013 because of their affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood and 30 Libyan between August and September2014 on charges of supporting and financing the Libyan revolution in addition to the fact that the United Arab Emirates has imposed numerous violations on the activists which have affected their personal safety and freedom and their right to a fair trial.

Besides, the report examined the UAE's misuse of Federal Law No. 2 of 2015 on Combating Discrimination and Anti-Hatred to track political activists, jurists and bloggers, and their ban on the establishment of civil society organizations that would monitor any violation against the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The UAE authorities’ violation of the rights of migrant workers was also mentioned in the report along with their maintenance of the Kafala system that permits the officials to hold the workers passports and to keep domestic workers without a regulated law.

The ICJHR report also monitored cases of arbitrary stripping of nationality against a number of political activists and bloggers along with their wives and children who were deprived of their right to appeal judicially and administratively, and prevented from having access to the decrees demanding the revocation of their citizenship.

The International Center for Justice and Human Rights concluded its report with a set of recommendations that would ensure all the guarantees for the races and ethnicities within the UAE and would implement the requirements and articles of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Source: http://www.ic4jhr.org/en/2014-11-30-18-36-45/media/767-uae-report-of-the...