UN experts urged to visit UAE prisons

A Geneva-based NGO has urged the Emirati authorities to allow UN bodies access to detention facilities in the country to investigate practices of indefinite detention.

In recent years, a number of prisoners of conscience in the UAE have been transferred to so-called counselling centres at the end of their sentence instead of being released.

This month marks two years since the completion of Osama al-Najjar’s sentence, who has since been held in a counselling centre within al-Razeen prison.

As there is no trial proceeding this form of detention, those transferred to such facilities can be held indefinitely with the government - rather than the judiciary - handing down punishment. This type of administrative detention grossly violates international standards of due process.

Today, the International Center for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR) called on the UAE authorities to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and other relevant Special Procedures to investigate the counselling centres to assess compliance with international standards.

ICJHR called for these centres to be placed under the control of a fair and independent judiciary to ensure due process and access to legal remedies.