Nearly four years after completing his sentence, Emirati Activist Mahmoud Al Hosani remains in detention

Political prisoner Mahmoud Al Hosani remains in prison in the UAE jails although he completed his prison jail three years and eight months ago.

Al Hosani was scheduled to be released on 16th July 2019, after serving his seven-year prison sentence.

However, UAE authorities continued to hold him  in a counseling center at Al-Razeen jail for allegedly being a “terrorist threat”.

Instead of being released upon the completion of their sentence, many prisoners are transferred without a legal basis to so-called “counselling centres” (or “Munasaha centres” in Arabic) inside prison facilities.

Officially used to “guide and reform” those convicted of terrorist offences, these counselling centres are increasingly employed as a political tool to silence dissent, under the pretext that political prisoners pose a “treat” to the state and society. Those who have been transferred to such centres have not been charged with any offence, therefore they are not able to appeal a judicial verdict.

This practice allows for the government to hold prisoners indefinitely without due process in order to repress human rights activists’ freedom of expression in the UAE.