Open Letter calling on UAE Parliament to take Urgent Action for Emirati Prisoner of Conscience Dr Nasser bin Ghaith 

RE: Release of Human Rights Defender Dr Nasser bin Ghaith

25 August 2021

Dear Members of the Federal National Council (FNC),

We, the International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE, are writing to you to call for your urgent intervention in the case of unjustly imprisoned Emirati academic Dr Nasser bin Ghaith. 

It has been six years since the arbitrary arrest of bin Ghaith, a distinguished economist and lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of Paris Sorbonne University, in August 2015. He was forcibly disappeared and held in a secret location for eight months, where he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. 

His trial in March 2017 led to a conviction, a 10-year prison sentence, purely on the basis of his peaceful and legitimate human rights activities. 

The charges, which constituted a direct reprisal against his outspokenness for human rights, in no way legitimated a 10-year prison sentence.  His endeavours to draw attention to the UAE’s poor human rights record were framed as an act which “intended to harm the reputation and stature of the State and one of its institutions”. His peaceful attempts to introduce democracy for fellow Emirati citizens should have been recognised as his civil and political rights, internationally recognised in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His peaceful activism should therefore not have amounted to a prison sentence at all, let alone a 10-year sentence.  

We would also like to raise awareness as to bin Ghaith’s poor state of health, which is further threatened by the ongoing risks of the coronavirus pandemic. He has undertaken a total of 3 hunger strikes throughout his imprisonment and has repeatedly been subjected to torture and ill-treatment by warders. He is detained in unsanitary conditions and is continually denied critical medical treatment for his high blood pressure.  Therefore, we fear that his already poor health will ultimately deteriorate to a life-threatening state, unless his release is granted.

The far-reaching concern for his case can be recognised in the fact that Mary Lawlor, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, demanded his immediate and unconditional release in November 2020. This was urged for along with the release of other Emirati prisoners of conscience, Mohamed Al-Roken and Ahmed Mansoor. 

We therefore implore you, as a member of the UAE’s Federal National Council, to initiate the immediate and unconditional release of Dr Nasser bin Ghaith, whose health remains critical and whose peaceful activism does not justify a 10-year long sentence.

Yours sincerely,

The International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE