On The Barring of International Observers from Trial Against UAE Activists

[Alkarama Foundation logo] [Alkarama Foundation logo]

On The Barring of International Observers from Trial Against UAE Activists

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following statement was issued by the Alkarama Foundation on 3 March 2013.] 

Ninety-four peaceful activists are due to be brought before the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi tomorrow morning, Monday, 4 March 2013, on state security offences. Limited access to lawyers, withholding of evidence and details on the charges by the State Prosecution, no right to appeal the court`s decision, detentions in undisclosed locations... before the trial even began, flagrant flaws in the "UAE 94" case have been reported, recalling the irregularities which marred the case of the "UAE 5" in 2011. The refusal to allow Ms Noemie Crotta from the Alkarama Foundation and Mr Ahmed Nashmi Al Dhufeiri, an Amnesty International lawyer, to enter the country in order to observe the trial aggravates our concerns about the fairness of this trial.

On 27 January 2013, Attorney general Salem Kubaish stated that the `ninety-four Emirati suspects` were accused of "launching, establishing, and running an organisation seeking to oppose the basic principles of the UAE system of governance and to seize power" and "communicating with individuals and international and foreign entities and establishments based outside the State in order to distort the image of the State." However, to date, no evidence against the ninety-four individuals has been revealed to the defense lawyers and some of them were only able to meet their clients at the end of February at the state security prosecutor`s office in Abu Dhabi. Although the details of the charges are still unclear, it appears that the accusations stated by the Attorney General refer to violations of article 180 of the Emirati Penal Code.

The ninety-four defendants will be not granted the right to appeal, as decisions issued by the Federal State Supreme Court are final.

The ninety-four defendants include two prominent human rights lawyers, Dr Mohamed Al Roken, who received the 2012 Alkarama Award for human rights defenders, and Dr Mohammed Al Mansoori. Other detainees include peaceful activists as well as thirteen women. Twenty of the ninety-four were presented by the authorities as `absconders` (ie not in detention); however, eight of them have been arrested over the past three days by the state security services.

At least sixty-four of the ninety-four detainees, who were arrested between March 2012 and December 2012, have been held since their arrest in an unknown location. Families of the victims report that from last autumn, they have been granted thirty-minute visits at the State Security Prosecutor`s office in Abu Dhabi every time their loved one`s detention order was renewed.  At least six of the detainees, including Dr Al Roken`s son and son-in-law, allege to have been subjected to torture in detention.

As strict conditions were imposed on families to attend the opening hearing (two relatives for each male defendant, one for each female), other requests to attend the trial have not yet been granted  and it is unclear whether or not the hearing will be public. According to Emirati criminal procedure law, the trial should be open to the public.

The refusal to allow entry to two representatives from Alkarama and Amnesty International in the last twenty-four hours raises concerns for the other organisations which have sent human rights observers to the UAE to attend the trial. Yesterday evening, Noémie Crottaz was blocked at immigration upon arrival at Abu Dhabi International Airport. Ms Crottaz, who was part of the delegation who observed the "UAE 5" trial in 2011, was told by an officer  from the immigration service that she had been denied entry into the country without any further explanation or details.

Earlier today, the representative sent by Amnesty International, Mr Ahmed Al Dhufeiri, was denied access to the country in similar circumstances. There does not appear to be any way to obtain this decision in writing, or to formally protest against the measure, and it is unclear whether this refusal is permanent or simply temporary during the period of the trial. A source indicated that this is a common practise, used by the Emirati security services, to prevent the entry of persona non grata.

Human rights violations against the defendants, lack of respect of fair trial guarantees as well as blocking of entry of two human rights observers aggravates our concerns that the ninety-four victims will be subjected to an unfair trial.

We recall that the Emirati authorities previously allowed for the presence of international observers to the trial of the "UAE 5," a move which was well received by the international community. Furthermore, last week, speaking before the Human Rights Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Anwar Mohammed Gargash announced that "the UAE has a stable political system characterized by a strong relationship between the citizens and government, the application of the rule of law, and good governance." We therefore call on the Emirati authorities to allow access to the trial to international observers including representatives from the International Commission of Jurists, the Arabic Network for Human Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights to allow for independent monitoring of the UAE`s application of national and international law. We further call on the Emirati authorities to respect international standards for a fair trial, as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412