UAE fails to Release Prisoners of Conscience One Year After the Start of the Covid-19 Pandemic

A year after the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, the UAE continues to fail to adhere to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ call to address the dismal conditions in detention centres and to release prisoners of conscience. 

In late March 2020 and reiterated in June 2020, Michelle Bachelet called upon governments to take action to protect the health and safety of individuals in detention, as distancing and self-isolation within the prisons were ‘practically impossible’. She recognised that detention facilities are often overcrowded, unhygienic and provide little to no access to health services.

The UAE’s detention centres are no exception. Emirati prisons are notorious for unsanitary conditions and vastly overcrowded facilities, with widespread denial of adequate medical care. Detainees in prisons such as al-Sadr, al-Wathba and al-Razeen live in small cells with poor ventilation, non-potable drinking water and often inadequate food. 

In February 2021, ICFUAE submitted a joint statement with Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (ADHRB) and the International Centre for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR) to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its Regular 46th Session calling on the UNHRC to address the UAE’s pandemic response in its prison system. Emirati prisons have not taken sufficient measures to prevent the spread such as increasing soap and hand sanitiser supplies or distributing gloves and masks. Additionally, unwell inmates were not receiving medical care from doctors nor any pain medication.

Since the start of the pandemic, the UAE has done little to change these conditions. Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report in June 2020 that detailed the unsanitary prison conditions and the systematic ill-treatment of detainees since the beginning of Covid-19. For example, family members of prisoners have reported that inmates experiencing symptoms were transferred to unknown locations while those who were in contact with that individual were often not tested. 

 In some cases, symptomatic inmates would be put into quarantine for 17 days that resembled solitary confinement. This is a breach of the internationally agreed standards of Rule 44 of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which states that solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days is prohibited. 

UAE prisons have also failed to release prisoners of conscience. In the same call for better conditions, Michelle Bachelet stated that governments should primarily release prisoners detained without sufficient legal basis, ‘including political prisoners and others detained simply for expressing critical or dissenting views’ in an effort to reduce prison populations. 

In late April 2020, the UAE authorities released over 4,000 detainees as part of the traditional annual pardon for Ramadan. However, of those released, none were prisoners of conscience. This means that the likes of prominent human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor and academic Nasser bin Ghaith remain in detention amid the ongoing pandemic. Even more concerning is that Mansoor and Ghaith suffer from health issues and are continually denied access to health care. 

ICFUAE statement:

ICFUAE echoes the UN’s declaration amid Covid-19 for the immediate release of prisoners of conscience and the improvement of health and safety conditions within the detention centres. With Ramadan approaching next month, more prisoners will be released as part of the traditional pardon. We call on the UAE government to include human rights defenders and all those imprisoned for their peaceful dissent to be included in this release.
 

ENDS

- For further information or comment, please contact the ICFUAE at media@icfuae.org.uk.