Jordanian political prisoner's mother appeals for his release from UAE prison

The mother of the Jordanian prisoner of conscience, Adel Bahar Matar, called on UAE authorities to release her son who was convicted on grounds of “promoting terrorist organisations.”

In a tweet from her official Twitter account, Matar's mother, Ruqayya, appealed to the Emirati rulers to pardon and release her son, the sole breadwinner of the family. She stated that her son has been in detained in Al Wathba prison for seven years, where he has been tortured and beaten, and denied family visits during his sentence.

Ruqayya further stated that the family was shocked by Matar's arrest alongside his three friends, Maher Abu al-Shawareb, Abdullah Abu Bakr and Yasser Abu Bakr, over a message posted on a WhatsApp group.

In 2015, Matar and his friends, also Jordanians residing in Abu Dhabi, had their homes raided by armed men in civilian clothes late at night. The men searched their homes and arrested them without a warrant and without informing them of the charges against them. They were immediately subjected to enforced disappearance for a period of more than three and a half months. 

It was later revealed that Matar and his friends were held in a small cell, two metres long and one metre wide, in one of the secret detention centres run by the state security apparatus (SSA), known as the Red prison. They were later sentenced to ten years imprisonment on charges of "promoting a terrorist organization by publishing and possessing public photos and videos."