News / Persian Gulf

Female activists risk torture in UAE detention: Amnesty

Saturday, 28 February 2015 12:40 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 28 February 2015 12:56 AM ]

The photo shows inside the Dubai Women's Central Jail.

Human rights organization Amnesty International says three female activists who have been held in secret detention facilities by the United Arab Emirates police are facing a real risk of torture and mistreatment.

The UK-based human rights watchdog said in a Friday report that the women are at the risk of torture or other ill-treatment and must be urgently released.

The three sisters vanished after they were summoned for questioning at a police station in Abu Dhabi on February 15, the report added.

Sources say they disappeared after speaking out about their brother, who is a prisoner of conscience, on social media.

Meanwhile, Philip Luther, the director of Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International, said in a press release that the UAE authorities are clearly punishing these women for speaking out on Twitter to draw attention to their brother’s unfair trial.

“Shortly after posting a tweet that said ‘I miss my brother,' Asma Khalifa al-Suwaidi and her two sisters were summoned by police and now have vanished as if into a black hole,” Luther said.

The senior rights official also demanded an immediate and unconditional release of the jailed women.

“The authorities must recognize that attempts to silence critics and crush freedom of expression by resorting to deeply repressive tactics will backfire. They cannot arbitrarily lock up activists or their families indefinitely without charge, on a whim. The women must be immediately and unconditionally released, like all others detained solely for peaceful expression,” Luther noted.

The three women had been peacefully campaigning online for their brother Dr. Issa al-Suwaidi. He is one of 69 people convicted after the 2013 unfair mass trial of 94 government critics.

Luther also strongly criticized Abu Dhabi’s human rights record.

“Despite trying to market itself as one of the most open and progressive states in the region, the UAE has a dark history of clamping down on dissent with an iron fist. The authorities are now making it nearly impossible for people to peacefully express criticism online without retribution.”

JR/AS/MHB

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