Take Action for Human Rights: Ramadan 2021

Free prisoner of conscience Ahmed Mansoor

Photo Credit Martin Ennals Foundation

Ahmed Mansoor, recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015, has been in detention since March 20 2017. Before dawn on March 20th, about a dozen security officers raided the home in Ajman, UAE, where Ahmed Mansoor lives with his wife and four young children, seizing all the family’s laptops and mobile devices, and taking Ahmed himself.

Ahmed Mansoor is serving a 10-year sentence following his May 2018 conviction by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) State Security Chamber of the Federal Appeal Court. He was convicted on charges including "insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols," including its leaders, "publish[ing] false information to damage [the] UAE’s reputation abroad” and “portray[ing] the UAE as a lawless land.” He has been kept in solitary confinement since his arrest in March 2017.

Mansoor, an engineer by profession and a poet, has a reputation as one of the leading human rights defenders in the Gulf region, and serves on the advisory boards of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights. He has publicly spoken out in defense of human rights on his blog, via social media and in interviews with international media.

In addition to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of 1,000,000 Emirati Dirham (approximately USD $270,000), the court also ordered placing him under surveillance for three years following his release.

⬇ Make Your Voice Heard ⬇

Sheikh

Khalifa

bin Zayed Al Nahyan

United Arab Emirates

{contact_data~salutation},

I am writing with regard to Ahmed Mansoor, an Emirati citizen who is serving a 10-year sentence following his May 2018 conviction by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) State Security Chamber of the Federal Appeal Court. He was convicted on charges including "insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols", including its leaders, "publish[ing] false information to damage [the] UAE’s reputation abroad” and “portray[ing] the UAE as a lawless land.” He has been kept in solitary confinement since his arrest in March 2017.

It appears to us that Ahmed Mansoor has been severely punished solely as a result of his exercise of his right to free expression and his peaceful criticism of human rights policies of the UAE and other governments. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience. We urge your government to release Ahmed Mansoor immediately and unconditionally.

We urge the UAE authorities, pending the release of Ahmed Mansoor, to end his solitary confinement and ensure that the conditions of his confinement meet international standards for the treatment of prisoners with regard to food, access to health care, and sanitary conditions.

We further urge your government to permit independent human rights experts, either with the United Nations or reputable international rights organizations, to visit Mansoor to ascertain the state of his well-being and to assess the conditions of his imprisonment.

Yours sincerely,
{user_data~First Name} {user_data~Last Name}

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