UAE: Five political activists being tried on charges of insulting the country's leaders refuse to attend court

Record ID: 1534181

  • Title: UAE: Five political activists being tried on charges of insulting the country's leaders refuse to attend court
  • Date: 3rd October 2011
  • Summary: YOUNG SUPPORTER WEARING SCARF WITH RULERS PICTURES IMPRINTED ON, SITTING ON A SWING BOY'S SCARF
  • Embargoed: 18th October 2011 04:04
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Arab Emirates
  • Country: United Arab Emirates
  • Topics: Crime,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAB0H08UEWJG2ZDDV6NTGZ7VZP8
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: Five political activists being tried in the United Arab Emirates on charges of insulting the country's leaders refused to attend a court hearing on Sunday (October 2), protesting against alleged mistreatment.
    "The activists didn't show up, they feel by participating in the trial they are actually giving the trial legitimacy and so far none of their concerns have been met except for opening the trial," said Human Rights Watch Officer Samer Muscati.
    "They have been held in prison for almost six months now and they have no right to appeal. So there is really some fundamental problems with the quality of justice in this case and I think that the accused realise that by showing up or now showing up, perhaps the judgement will be the same and it's already been written," he added.
    The five political activists and bloggers were arrested in April.
    The hearing was made public for the media and representatives of rights groups for the first time since the trial began in June.
    Wedad al-Muhairi, the wife of Nasser bin Ghaith, said her husband had been forced to go the toilet in a tiny confinement.
    "He has been harassed, for six months he was not allowed to pray, doing biological practices in his confinement," she said.
    Al-Muhairi says bin Ghaith has suffered leg injuries from chains.
    The state prosecution, presenting their case on Sunday, said one of the activists published a petition that called for boycotting the UAE's elections, held last month to select half of a 40-seat consultative council.
    On their arrest, the attorney general said the men were suspected of inciting "acts that threaten state security and public order", and "insulting the president, vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi".
    The five pleaded not guilty in July during a hearing at the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, whose verdicts cannot be appealed.
    Ahmed Mansoor, one of the detainees, speaking during a Human Rights Watch conference before his imprisonment said: "We have the right to ask why internet sites are blocked, independent pages, which can present an alternative political view, a critical view of politics, social and religious issues, why are they blocked?"
    At a protest in support of the government outside the court Emirati poet Abdul Karim al-Marzouqi said: "The court here is not trying Ahmed Mansoor because he expressed his opinion, no, the issue is not about an opinion and having an opinion as it might seem to some, the issue is about insulting the leaders of the country."
    Among the defendants is Ahmed Manos, an outspoken rights activist who joined several dissidents this year to start an online petition demanding the country's Federal National Council, a toothless assembly, receive greater powers.
    The petition also called for the right to vote for all citizens. The government expanded the number of handpicked eligible voters to 129,000 in the Gulf state's second election on Sept. 24, about 12 percent of nationals in the world's No.3 oil exporter. Just 7,000 were chosen for the elections 2006.
    Bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France's Sorbonne University, published an article criticising what he called Gulf states' attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their citizens with generous government spending programmes.
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