{"id":254,"date":"2019-07-05T23:48:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T22:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.org\/en\/?p=254"},"modified":"2019-07-07T23:54:30","modified_gmt":"2019-07-07T22:54:30","slug":"ahmad-mekkaoui-at-risk-of-torture-at-al-wathba-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/?p=254","title":{"rendered":"Ahmad Mekkaoui at risk of torture at Al-Wathba prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Illegally arrested,\ntortured in a secret detention centre, and unlawfully sentenced to 15 years in\nprison, Ahmad Mekkaoui is once again detained incommunicado and faces a risk of\ntorture.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The AVT-UAE has\nlearnt with great concern that Ahmad Mekkaoui has been kept in solitary\nconfinement for the past three months. Since April 11th, 2019, Ahmad has not\nbeen able to communicate with his family. His loved ones expressed concerns\nabout his safety and his health condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It has been\napproximately five years since Lebanese citizen, Ahmad Ali Mekkaoui, was\narrested in the United Arab Emirates on unfounded charges. On October 13th,\n2014, plain-clothed state security agents raided Ahmad Mekkaoui\u2019s house late at\nnight and searched the residence without providing a search warrant. He was\nlater taken to an undisclosed location where he was held in solitary\nconfinement for seven months without being allowed to contact his family, nor\nhaving the right to seek a lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During these seven\nmonths in secret detention, Mekkaoui was subjected to inhumane treatment and\ncontinuously tortured. AVT-UAE was informed that the victim was severely beaten\non the head, the body, and was also sexually abused by the torturers. Due to\nthe systematic torture and cruel treatment he went through, Ahmad\u2019s health\ncondition significantly deteriorated, and he had to undergo several surgeries.\nAhmad was not able to take all the pain inflicted on him during his\nincommunicado detention, and he ultimately signed the written confessions under\nduress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seven months after\nhis arrest, Ahmad finally appeared for the first time before the State Security\nProsecutor. During the hearing, he reported the torture and inhumane treatment\nthat he had been subjected to, and testified that he was forced to sign the\nwritten confessions. However, the Prosecutor refused to open an investigation,\nand charged him with \u201cbelonging to a terrorist group.\u201d He was then transferred\nto Al-Wathba prison in Abu Dhabi where he has been kept since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was only two\nyears later that his trial started before the State Security Chamber of the\nFederal Supreme Court. Ahmad was denied access to his lawyer before his trial,\nwhich is, in fact, a total violation of his fair trial guarantees. On December\n4th, 2016, after seven hearings, the court sentenced him to fifteen years\nimprisonment on the sole basis of the confessions extracted under torture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On September 15th,\n2017, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued an opinion\nrecognising that Mekkaoui\u2019s deprivation of liberty was arbitrary and calling\nfor his immediate release. The opinion of the Working Group outlined the\nabsence of a legal basis for Ahmad\u2019s detention and the violation of the\nprocedural safeguards. Despite this opinion and the serious concerns raised by\nthe WGAD on his physical and psychological condition, Ahmad Mekkaoui remains in\njail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On April 11th, 2019,\nhe was transferred to solitary confinement in a dark, windowless cell. On the\nsame day, Ahmad called his sister to inform her that the prosecution filed a\nnew case against her, his lawyer and himself. The prosecution charged them with\n\u201cpublishing false information to damage the reputation of the UAE.\u201d This charge\nrefers to a news report, in which his sister and lawyer spoke out on public TV\nthat Ahmad had been subjected to torture on the hands of UAE authorities. That\nwas the last time Ahmad\u2019s voice was heard. The family has not received any new\ninformation about him since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The victim is now\nheld incommunicado, outside the protection of the law, and is facing a high\nrisk of torture and ill-treatment. The AVT-UAE is all the more concerned about\nAhmad\u2019s physical integrity, given his poor health condition. He is, in fact,\nstill suffering from the effects of torture till this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the\nratification of the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) in 2012,\nthe United Arab Emirates continues to violate the convention\u2019s provisions and\nsystematically uses torture as a tool of repression, while granting full\nimpunity to the perpetrators. This issue was stressed upon by the former\nSpecial Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul,\nwho noted, during her visit to the UAE, that \u201cthere were no independent\ninvestigations undertaken into allegations of torture\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The AVT-UAE calls\nupon the international community to urge the Emirati authorities to fully\ncomply with their obligations under international human rights law and\nimmediately put an end to the arbitrary detention of Ahmad Mekkaoui.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We further urge the\nUnited Arab Emirates to immediately grant him contact with his family and\nlawyer, open an immediate and impartial investigation into his allegations of\ntorture, and hold accountable all those who were involved in the deprivation of\nAhmad Mekkaoui\u2019s human rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illegally arrested, tortured in a secret detention centre, and unlawfully sentenced to 15 years in prison, Ahmad Mekkaoui is once again detained incommunicado and faces a risk of torture. The AVT-UAE has learnt with great concern that Ahmad Mekkaoui has been kept in solitary confinement for the past three months. Since April 11th, 2019, Ahmad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-statements","category-victims"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions\/257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avtuae.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}