Association
Celebrated human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor turned 54 in prison on Sunday, 22nd October, his sixth birthday behind bars. He remains in solitary confinement serving 10 years in prison after being arrested on 20th March 2017. Supporters tweeted their support, calling on the UAE to #FreeAhmed. Over 40,000 people have signed a petition created by Global Citizen, with CIVICUS calling on the authorities to free Mansoor.
Amnesty International also created a petition to free Emirati human rights defenders ahead of the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) being held in Dubai from 30th November to 12th December 2023. Participants at the COP28 should urge the UAE to end its repression of independent civil society and should make a commitment to phasing out fossil fuels, Human Rights Watch said on 20th October 2023 when issuing a question and answer document about the meeting. “The UAE routinely arrests its critics, and authorities have ignored or denied requests for access to the country by United Nations experts, human rights researchers, and academics and journalists who have criticized UAE abuses,” said Human Rights Watch.
In a similar vein, on 13th September 2023, a global network of organisations wrote to the participating governments at the upcoming COP28 Climate Conference raising concerns that “allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process.” They further demanded that the UAE not spy on COP28 attendees and end unlawful state surveillance, release all prisoners of conscience, take action on violations of women’s rights, repeal all laws criminalising LGBTQI+ individuals, implement workers’ rights reforms and issue reparations for forced labour, stop supporting human rights violators in Yemen and across the Middle East and North Africa and repudiate greenwashing and fossil fuel hypocrisy.
Expression
In separate developments, on 26th September 2023, Access Now and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) jointly submitted an amicus brief calling on the Oregon U.S. District Court to hold the Emirati spyware outfit DarkMatter accountable for illegally hacking prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain Al-Hathloul.
Al-Hathloul spearheaded a campaign to defy the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for her women’s rights activism. In 2017, she was hacked through DarkMatter Group’s illegal mercenary program known as Project Raven, arbitrarily arrested by the UAE’s security services, then extradited to Saudi Arabia where she was detained, imprisoned and tortured.
In 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit in the Oregon U.S. District Court against DarkMatter Group and three of its former senior U.S. executives, for illegally hacking Al-Hathloul’s iPhone to secretly track her communications and whereabouts. An amended complaint highlights how DarkMatter Group recruited former members of the U.S. national security establishment, including the three defendants, and used U.S. digital surveillance technology to target dissidents on behalf of the UAE, including Al-Hathloul.
DarkMatter has applied to have the case dismissed, claiming that all parties have no ties to the U.S. and therefore the court has no jurisdiction over them.