[The following statement was issued by the Arab Network for Human Rights Information on 14 October 2012.]
ANHRI condemns the renew of the campaign of arrests launched by the UAE authorities against the judges and the reformers, including the arrest of a judge in the Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal.
The Emirati security forces had arrested the judge Mohammed Saeed Ziab Abdouly, president of penal circuit in the Appellate Court of Abu Dhabi, to join the list of judges, counsels, and detained lawyers in violation of Article no. 52 of Federal Judiciary Law (3/1993), which prohibits the detention of judges except in cases of flagrant violation and mandates obtaining the permission of the body that constitutes the disciplinary board, which decides after hearing the judge either to continue detention or to release him on or without a bail.
The authorities have also arrested an expert in charity work, Abdul Rahim Naqi, from Ras Al-Khaimah and Mansour Ahmadi, the Vice President of the National Union of Students of Emirate and the member of the youth organization for Jerusalem, without knowing the reasons for the detention and place of detention. Such arrest falls within the fierce campaign launched by the UAE authorities against activists and the reformists since the second half of the month of July 2012. The places of detention of sixty-four detainees are not yet known.
With regard to places of detention and the trials of the detainees, Hasan Mansouri, the son of one detainee, said on his personal Twitter account that the detainees are inside two prisons that are not supervised by the prosecutions. One of them is known for sensitive politically arrests, which contradicts with what stipulated in the laws that period of pending imprisonment shall be under the supervision of the prosecution. In addition, the bodies in charge of the case is the Office of the president, not the prosecution.
ANHRI said that “the renewed aggressive campaign launched by the UAE authorities against the activists and the reformers, which began to affect the judges, was recently deemed a continuation of the unprecedented escalation against the judge. It is deemed a blatant violation of all international laws and conventions and is proving the confusion in the UAE authorities decisions by arresting of a large number of activists, reforms, rights’ advocates, and lawyers in addition to the arrest of one member of the ruling family, without any clear charges”.
ANHRI wonders about the charges against the detainees: “Is it political accusations as the Emirati authorities trying to depict it to abroad through the use of the media to launch a fierce attack against the detainees and tarnish their image in front of public opinion or it is a normal legal charges?
ANHRI calls on the UAE authorities to immediately release of the detainees in the UAE prisons or disclose their places of detention, the announcement of the charges against them and bring them before a fair trial.