UAE security services 'openly torturing prisoners with impunity'

The report, published on Tuesday by the International Centre for Justice and Human Rights (ICJHR) in Geneva, points out what it said was the duality of UAE claims to uphold human rights in public, whilst also allowing for torture behind closed doors.

Director of ICJHR, Safwa Aissa, said: “There are many reports of torture in UAE prisons, even from those who are not prisoners of conscience. It is common practice by the security apparatus to torture people.

“In trying to deal with this problem however, it is important to talk about the impunity of the torturer. Many prison officers regularly torture detainees but they are protected by the state - there is no scrutiny or supervision of these guards.

“Even when we have the names of the torturer, the government does nothing to pursue these guards or to correct the practices of these individuals’.”

The report describes in detail what it said was “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment” at the hands of Nepalese guards in UAE prisons and said this seems to “be contrary to that stated by Emirati authorities”.

The report describes in detail what it said was “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment” at the hands of Nepalese guards in UAE prisons and said this seems to “be contrary to that stated by Emirati authorities”.

Of particular note is the report’s focus on political dissidents and activists, who it said are regularly transferred illegally to secret detention centers without court orders.

Aissa pointed towards the special cases of the brothers Salim and Mohammad al-Arady, dual Libyan-Canadian nationals who were recently imprisoned in the UAE without charge.

Mohamed al-Aradi told Amnesty International that he had been systematically tortured, whilst also being denied access to his family and lawyers.

Aradi said: “I was beaten all over. Every day they would focus on beating one area of my body…. They sat me on an electric chair and wanted to give me electric shocks. The only thing that stopped them was a metal rod that I have in my knee so the electric shocks would have killed me.

“Instead, they water-boarded me.”

The UAE is not an official signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a UN treaty which commits members to respect the civil and political rights of individual citizens.