Human Rights Watch urges UAE to remove dissidents from ‘terrorist’ list

Human Rights Watch said in a report on Tuesday that the UAE has designated dissidents and their relatives as “terrorists” and called on Abu Dhabi to reverse this decision immediately.

The official Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported on 8 January a cabinet decision to add 11 dissidents and their relatives, as well as eight companies, to its “terrorist” list for their alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is classified as a “terrorist organisation” in the UAE.

“At least nine of the eleven designated individuals are political dissidents or their relatives,” said HRW. “All eight companies are registered solely in the United Kingdom and are owned or previously owned by exiled Emirati dissidents or their relatives.”

The UAE’s move, said the rights group, represents an “escalation” of its “transnational repression”, targeting not only dissidents, but also their family members. “This reflects the country’s indiscriminate use of overbroad counterterrorism laws and contempt for due process.”

As such, said HRW. “The authorities [in Abu Dhabi] should immediately remove the terrorism designations, and the UK should defend the businesses, all of them registered there.”

According to HRW’s UAE researcher Joey Shea, “Throwing nineteen people and companies onto a list of alleged terrorists without any semblance of due process, and with serious ramifications for their livelihoods, makes a mockery of the rule of law.” Shea noted that the “Emirati authorities are abusing a vague terrorism law to smear and ostracise dissidents, criminalising even mere contact with them,” adding that, “They should immediately reverse these insidious designations and cease cracking down on peaceful expression.”

The report pointed out that only two of the eleven have been convicted or accused of a terrorist offence, “although both under questionable circumstances, according to informed sources and the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Centre (EDAC).” Moreover, “One was convicted in absentia as part of the grossly unfair ‘UAE94’ mass trial of political dissidents in 2013. The other was accused in a separate case related to supporting the ‘UAE94’ detainees.”

Human Rights Watch criticised the UAE’s 2014 counterterrorism law for its “overly broad definition of terrorism [which] allows the executive branch to designate individuals and entities as terrorists without any corresponding legal requirement to demonstrate the objective basis of the claim.”

Shea added that, “The UK government should step in to defend British businesses against the spurious claims of Emirati authorities, particularly as it edges closer to signing a free trade agreement with Gulf countries that appears to lack even basic human rights protections.”

According to the report, “The designation also criminalises communication with designated ‘terrorists’ and imposes penalties up to life in prison. This isolates designated individuals further, leaving UAE-based relatives vulnerable to long prison terms for merely communicating with them.”

Human Rights Watch quoted one of the individuals added to the terrorist list as saying that, “Now I am calling my mother, my sisters and no one is picking up the phone, it is a clear thing… Previously I was able to call my mother to talk to her, but now I am not able to reach out to her; this is part of the pressure on the family there.”

In 2014, the UAE compiled a list of “terrorist groups” consisting of 83 entities, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Such use of the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” against what are essentially political opponents of an oppressive Middle Eastern regime renders both terms somewhat meaningless, say critics of similar laws adopted by the US, European and UK governments. “When everyone is a ‘terrorist’, then nobody is,” said one.

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