Victims of UAE injustice: UK academic Matthew Hedges, with his wife Daniela, and UAE Human Rights Campaigner Ahmed Mansoor, with three of his children. |
The UAE government’s pardoning of UK academic Matthew Hedges earlier this week was clearly a cause for celebration. Matthew’s release was the result of the courageous campaigning of his wife Daniela Tejada. After months of having her requests to meet with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt ignored, Daniela decided to disregard the Foreign Office’s advice and shared the story of her husband’s plight with the UK media. By doing so she secured the immediate attention of Jeremy Hunt along with the sympathy and support of the UK public. The UAE’s mistreatment of Matthew caused such outrage that the staff of three UK universities voted to boycott their UAE campuses and several UK authors booked to appear at next March’s state-sponsored Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai announced that they would boycott the festival if Matthew remained in prison.
Obscene miscarriages of justice like Matthew’s are everyday occurrences in the UAE, where writers, academics and journalists are routinely arrested, imprisoned and tortured for expressing the mildest criticism of the country’s sociopathic rulers. In the words of Amnesty International’s Middle East Director Lynn Maalouf, “The authorities have left no room for doubt: those who dare to speak their minds freely in the UAE today risk grave punishment."
One of the UAE’s notable prisoners of conscience is the engineer and blogger Ahmed Mansoor, formerly described by Amnesty as "the last remaining Emirati human rights defender”. After being released from eight months in prison in 2011 for the crime of “insulting officials”, the UAE government confiscated Ahmed’s passport, forcing him to remain in the country. Knowing full well that his actions would inevitably result in further imprisonment and torture, Ahmed continued to speak out against human rights violations in the UAE. In 2015 a jury of ten global human rights organisations, including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, awarded him the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in recognition of his courageous work.
Human rights organisations explain the vital role played by UAE human rights defender
Ahmed Mansoor in this 2015 video made before his return to prison.
Ahmed Mansoor in this 2015 video made before his return to prison.
In March 2017, Ahmed was re-arrested and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for the “crime” of criticising the UAE government on social media. Unlike Daniela Tejada, Ahmed’s wife is unable to campaign for his release. The family and friends of UAE prisoners of conscience who challenge prisoners’ convictions are liable to become prisoners themselves and that would leave Ahmed’s four young children without a parent. If Ahmed and the many other UAE prisoners of conscience convicted purely for exercising their freedom of expression are to be pardoned, the pressure must come from outside of the UAE.
I’d like to think that UK authors are better than that. Freedom of expression is the fundamental principle on which our craft depends; whether we boycott the festival or choose to attend it, UK authors should challenge those who are brutally suppressing freedom of expression within the UAE. So, as we celebrate Matthew Hedges’ release, we should also speak out to defend the rights of those who have no one else to defend them.
Further Reading
Matthew Hedges is free. What about UAE citizens who are unfairly jailed and silenced?
Middle East Analyst Bill Law's November 2018 article for Middle East Eye.
THE EMIRATES FESTIVAL OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: How do writers and publishers square their commitment to freedom of expression with sponsorship by a brutally repressive regime?
My March 2018 blog post on the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.
THE EMIRATES FESTIVAL OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: How do writers and publishers square their commitment to freedom of expression with sponsorship by a brutally repressive regime?
My March 2018 blog post on the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.
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