ICFUAE join UK Lawyers' Call for Legal Reform in the UAE

ICFUAE joined UK lawyers outside the Emirati embassy in London last Friday to call for an end to the unjust detention of British nationals in the UAE.

A series of letters, which expressed concerns about Britain's suffering “wrongful persecution and unwarranted detention in the UAE”, were hand delivered to the UAE embassy by ICFUAE, Detained in Dubai's David Haigh, and the mother of a British detainee in the UAE

Detained in Dubai (DiD), a UK-based NGO who provide legal assistance to foreign detainees in the UAE, organised Friday's intervention as a means to open-up a dialogue with the Emirati authorities about legal reforms. In their letter to the embassy, the campaign group said that “the serious endemic flaws in the UAE legal system” are resulting in scores of UK nationals being wrongfully prosecuted and unjustly detained in the country.

In recent years, there have been a string of cases whereby British citizens have been detained in the UAE for seemingly bizarre and innocuous reasons. For instance, last October Scotsman Jamie Harron spent £30,000 in legal fees after being detained for three months for 'touching a man's hip' whilst in a busy Dubai bar. Only a few weeks prior to this, UK government IT worker Jamil Mukadam was detained in the UAE, and forced to spend £15,000 in legal expenses, after rudely gesticulating whilst stuck in a traffic jam in Dubai.

At the action last Friday, Detained in Dubai reiterated their proposal to work with the UAE authorities to redress some of these issues, stating:

'The goal of our work is not to undermine the United Arab Emirates. We want to see the country improve and prosper, and we have offered to work with them in advancing reforms.”

UAE embassy staff, however, were not forthcoming, as hostile security guards obstructed campaigners from delivering the letters to the embassy. Instead, they were forced to leave them on the doorstep outside. Though Mr Haigh later went back and posted the letters through the embassy letter box, the former solicitor expressed doubts as to whether they would ever be read, telling a Daily Mail reporter outside the embassy:

“We just want to have an open dialogue with the embassy but they are not interested. When we try to call and arrange a meeting they never respond.

They will not even take our letter. We only want to sit down with them and talk about the situation where many British people, either tourists of people working there, end up being arrested.”

The unjust detentions of British nationals in the UAE should be understood within a wider climate of repression in the Emirates.

Since the Arab Spring of 2011, repression has been rapidly stepped up by the UAE authorities which has seen both Emiratis and non-Emiratis arbitrarily detained, forcefully disappeared, and in many cases tortured on the most frivolous of charges.

As cases such as the above gain more attention worldwide, it is imperative that the UAE authorities start implementing the necessary reforms. Central to this process must be the institution of an independent judicial system that is in line with internationally recognised legal standards.