A court docket within the United Arab Emirates sentenced 43 activists to life imprisonment after convicting them of terrorism crimes.
The Federal Court docket of Attraction in Abu Dhabi discovered the defendant responsible of “making a terrorist group”, state media mentioned.
United Nations consultants and human rights teams have harshly criticized the mass trials.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) mentioned greater than 80 human rights defenders and political dissidents, often called the “Emirates 84”, had been placed on trial.
Final January, the UAE Lawyer Basic referred the defendants to the Federal Court docket of Attraction in Abu Dhabi, accusing them of “establishing one other clandestine group to commit acts of violence and terrorism on UAE soil”, the Justice and Dignity Committee.
He mentioned a lot of the defendants had been members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist motion categorized as a terrorist group within the UAE since 2014.
In accordance with WAM official information companyOn Wednesday, the Federal Court docket of Attraction in Abu Dhabi “sentenced 43 defendants to life imprisonment for founding, establishing and managing terrorist organizations.”
WAM mentioned that along with the 43 defendants who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, 10 different defendants had been sentenced to 10 to fifteen years in jail for “collaboration with the Islamic Get together” and cash laundering.
One defendant was acquitted and 24 circumstances had been dominated inadmissible, the assertion added.
In accordance with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Worldwide, a lot of the defendants have spent greater than a decade in jail after being jailed within the 2013 “UAE 94” trial.
Many have accomplished their jail phrases.
However in response to AFP, UAE authorities mentioned the newest costs had been “considerably totally different” from these filed in 2013, and didn’t embody costs of financing “terrorist organizations.”
In accordance with Amnesty Worldwide, the indictment, costs, protection attorneys and the names of the defendants “are all stored secret by the federal government”.
It mentioned particulars may solely be identified by means of “leaks”.
Three of these sentenced to life imprisonment had been Nasser bin Ghaith, Abdulsalam Darwish al-Marzouqi and Sudan ·Sultan Bin Kayed al-Qasimi. Distinguished activist Ahmed Mansour is without doubt one of the defendants, the assertion added.
Responding to the decision, Amnesty Worldwide’s Devon Kenney urged the UAE to “urgently revoke this illegal sentence” and referred to as for the discharge of these sentenced.
“This trial was a shameless parody of justice and violated plenty of elementary authorized rules, together with the precept that the identical individual can’t be tried twice for a similar crime and that an individual can’t be punished retroactively underneath a regulation that doesn’t exist earlier than she or he has been charged. when the crime occurred.
Khalid Ibrahim, of whom Ahmed Mansour serves as a board member of the Gulf Heart for Human Rights, mentioned: “So many activists and human rights defenders will spend many years in jail, unable to look at their very own It is an actual tragedy as the youngsters develop up.
The UAE imposes restrictions on political exercise regardless of being one of many richest international locations within the Center East and selling high-tech business and innovation.
The federation of seven emirates, together with Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has no official opposition and bans political events.
In 2013, practically 70 Islamists had been jailed for allegedly plotting to overthrow the federal government.
