Emirati woman tortured and forced to sign confession leading to 5 years prison sentence
Amina al-Abdouli, an Emirati teacher and mother of 5 was convicted of publishing information on Twitter with the aim of inciting hatred against the State and disturbing public order, mocking and damaging the reputation of State institutions and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
On November 2015, she was forcibly disappeared by State Security forces in plain clothes after they raided her house without a warrant. Handcuffed and blindfolded, Amina was taken to an unknown location.
On 20 November Amina launched a hunger strike for 3 weeks to protest the violations of her human rights as she was arrested without knowing the charges, confined in a small room without windows and denied access neither to the lawyer nor to her family. During two months and a half of investigation, 2 female interrogators mistreated Amina by insulting her, shouting at her and threatening to arrest her relatives.
On the 11th week, Amina was subjected to humiliating treatment by 8 men for several days before being taken by a Nepalese female guard, blindfolded, with her hands tied and forced to stand up for long periods of time as a form of torture. Whilst tied up, Amina was severely beaten by a woman guard on almost every part of her body and was ordered to insult her family, especially the parents of her father.
Despite severe injuries from enduring extensive torture, prisoner Amina was denied proper medical treatment and torture allegations presented by her lawyer, Hamdan al-Zuwaidi, were ignored by Judge Falah al-Hajri. Since then no investigations are known to have been carried out.
Under this harsh and humiliating treatment, Amina was forced to sign 25 papers, including a statement written by the interrogators themselves and was prevented from reading them. To protest this aggressive violation, Amina started a hunger strike which lasted two weeks, during which she was put on trial on June 27, 2016. Three days later, after being transferred to Al-Wathba prison, Amina was sentenced to five years in prison.
