Female detainee provides testimony of torture in al-Watbha prison

In an audio recording smuggled out of Abu Dhabi’s al-Watbha, UAE detainee Maryam al-Balushi has alleged that she is being tortured and mistreated by prison warders. 

It is the second testimony al-Balushi has provided about her plight in the Emirati jail in the space of a year. In this one, the Emirati prisoner of conscience says that she continues to be mistreated by authorities despite pleading for an improvement in her detention conditions.

Since her arrest in 2015, al-Balushi says that she has been subjected to systematic mistreatment and due process violations. The Emirati authorities have reportedly denied her family visits, medical treatment, and extracted confessions from her under duress.

Al-Balushi said that many female inmates in al-Watbha prison are regularly subjected to severe beatings at the hands of the prison guards, forcing some of them to commit suicide.

Maryam al-Balushi is currently serving a 5-year sentence on charges of financing terrorism after making small donations to a Syrian family amid the country’s civil war.

Listen to the recording here: https://twitter.com/i/status/1142075394734088192