Remembering Muhammad Alnuaimi and Salman Darwish Almarzooqi, Sons of Emirati Dissidents

The families of UAE activists, Ahmed al-Shaiba Alnuaimi and Abdul Salam Darwish, mourned the deaths of their sons, Muhammad Alnuaimi and Salman Darwish Almarzooqi, in November 2021. 

Muhammad Alnuaimi, who suffered from cerebral palsy and quadriplegia, passed away at the age of 25 on November 5, 2021 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whilst his parents and five siblings remained exiled in London.

At the time of his death, Muhammad was placed under a travel ban and denied specialist medical treatment abroad as a form of reprisal in response to his father’s activism. Resultantly, he had not seen his family in nine years. He was being looked after by his elderly grandmother and required constant care: he was limited to being fed through tubes, needed regular medication and had to be moved frequently when lying down. 

In January 2021, his father Ahmed launched an online campaign urging Emirati authorities to lift the travel ban and allow Muhammad to join his family in London, where he would have been able to receive the specialist medical care that he required.

Ahmed Alnuaimi is a member of the Al Islah (Reform and Social Guidance) Association, an Emirati political group. He was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia after signing a petition calling for democratic reform in the UAE during the grossly unfair UAE 94 mass trial in 2013. At the time of the trial, he had been in the UK on private business and has remained in self-imposed exile ever since, in fear of persecution. Ahmed’s wife and five out of six of his children joined him in the UK in 2014. However, Muhammad was forced to remain in the UAE due to his poor health. Soon after, he was faced with a travel ban.

In March 2021, human rights organisations MENA Rights Group and ALQST submitted an allegation letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression and the Special Rapporteur on the right to physical and mental health, calling for their assistance to remove the travel ban placed on Muhammad.

On November 24, 2021, weeks after Muhammad’s death, Salman Darwish Almarzooqi, son of Abdul Salam Darwish, passed away at the age of 21 in the US. Salman had autism and had suffered from neurological disorders since his childhood.

In 2017, the UAE authorities revoked Salman and his family’s citizenships, rendering them stateless and ineligible to basic rights such as healthcare and education. This also denied them the right to resort to the judiciary and have judicial appeal. Consequently the family is stranded in the US. Salman and his two brothers, who also suffer from autism, were denied essential medical treatment as a result of the suspension of their treatment grant. Furthermore, the authorities have stripped Abdul of his pension, leaving his family without a stable source of income.

According to sources, Salman was incredibly close to his father and faced a considerable amount of trauma due to his father’s imprisonment, which in turn affected his behaviour and caused his health to severely deteriorate. The last time Salman visited his father was in July 2016, before leaving for medical treatment in the US and the last time he heard his father’s voice was in May 2017, after which prison authorities barred phone calls. Salman, who had a low level of communication due to his autism, was disengaged during these phone calls and remained unfulfilled. He required physical contact with his father to feel a substantial connection.

Currently Abdul’s wife, Ms Awatef Al-Rayes, and his children in the US have no contact with him. However, one of his daughters who resides in the UAE is still able to receive irregular phone calls from Abdul.

Ms Awatef has repeatedly pleaded for Abdul’s release on her Twitter account and called on the Emirati president and prime minister to put an end to the repression and harassment of her family, including the suspension of payment of Abdul’s retirement pension- the family’s only source of income. As a result, she has previously been threatened with legal action under the Cybercrime Law. 

The family have been repeatedly interrogated by the UAE authorities and threatened with imprisonment if they publish anything about their situation online or speak out about other detainees. Moreover, the family continues to live in a constant state of fear and paranoia as the UAE government has bribed individuals with ties to the family to obtain more information on them. This has happened on two occasions since Salman’s death.

Abdul Salam Darwish, alongside Ahmed Alnuami, was also a member of the Al Islah Association. He was arrested and subjected to an enforced disappearance on July 24, 2012 after signing the same reform petition. During his pre-trial detention Abdul was subjected to torture and forced to sign confessions without being able to read them. He was tried during the UAE 94 trial and sentenced to 10 years in Al Razeen prison, infamously known as the Guantanamo of the UAE. Whilst in Al Razeen, Abdul has been held in atrocious prison conditions and in 2014, he was denied treatment after suffering from partial facial paralysis which left him unable to use half of his facial muscles. Most recently, it has been reported that his facial paralysis has returned, he has terrible knee pain and has lost a significant amount of weight.

The UAE state security apparatus has targeted dozens of relatives of Emirati dissidents, as exemplified by Muhammad and Salman’s cases. Citizenship revocation, denial of travel, restrictions on work and pursuing higher education, and withdrawal of state services are common tactics employed by the UAE government as revenge against prisoners of conscience and their families. Stripping of nationality in particular is commonly used as a weapon of political repression despite Article 15 of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR) stating that “No one shall be arbitrarily stripped of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.” In addition to this “collective punishment”, relatives are subject to surveillance as well as regular questioning. 

ICFUAE Statement 

ICFUAE are deeply saddened by the deaths of Muhammad Alnuaimi and Salman Darwish Almarzooqi. May they rest in peace. We call on the Emirati authorities to stop the collective punishment imposed on families of prisoners of conscience and grant them their full rights. We further call for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience, wrongfully imprisoned for simply exercising their right to freedom of expression.