Open letter to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum from Amnesty International and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute

Open letter to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum from Amnesty International and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute

A letter was written on 19 March 2015 to express the grave concern about the continuing imprisonment of human rights lawyer Dr Mohammed al-Roken in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Dr al-Roken has been imprisoned since 17 July 2012 and is presently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Abu Dhabi after he was convicted in July 2013, during a grossly unfair mass trial of 94 individuals, on the charge of “establishing an organization seeking to bring about the government’s overthrow” – a charge which he denied in court.

The letter also demonstrates how the trial of the “UAE 94” was deeply flawed and unfair and was widely condemned by various UN human rights bodies and international human rights organisations. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that the arrest and detention of Dr Mohammed al-Roken and the other prisoners had resulted from the exercise of their rights to opinion and expression and to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It called on the UAE government to release them and provide them with adequate reparation.

To read more, download the following PDF:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde25/1215/2015/en/

- Published on 19 March 2015

- By Amnesty International and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute

Tags: Amnesty

 

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