Your Excellency, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently announced multiple projects promoting pluralism and tolerance both at home and abroad. 2019 has been declared the \u2018Year of Tolerance\u2019<\/a> and in 2020, Dubai will host the World Expo trade fair, under the theme \u2018Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.\u2019 Upon Dubai\u2019s selection for this exhibition in 2013<\/a>, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, said: \u201c[w]e renew our promise to astonish the world in 2020.\u201d We welcome these public commitments to tolerance and open-mindedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is in this same spirit that we, the undersigned, call upon the UAE government to immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, whose life we believe may be at risk following beatings and hunger strikes to protest deplorable and inhumane prison conditions. The Authorities have convicted and imprisoned him solely for his human rights work and for exercising his right to freedom of expression, which is also protected under the UAE\u2019s Constitution. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before his imprisonment, Mansoor was known as \u2018the last human rights defender left in the UAE\u2019 on account of his fearless work to document human rights violations in the country. His willingness to speak out publicly in defence of human rights on his blog, via social media and in interviews with international media was an example to us all. He is also an engineer, a poet, and a father of four. He is on the advisory boards of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Human Rights Watch and was awarded the 2015 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n UAE authorities arrested Mansoor on 20 March 2017 at his home and subjected him to enforced and involuntary disappearance for over six months, with no access to a lawyer and sparse contact with his family, who did not know his exact whereabouts. The authorities held him in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shortly after his arrest, a group of United Nations human rights experts<\/a> said that the UAE should release him immediately, describing his arrest as \u201ca direct attack on the legitimate work of human rights defenders in the UAE.\u201d They expressed fear that his arrest \u201cmay constitute an act of reprisal for his engagement with UN human rights mechanisms, for the views he expressed on social media, including Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A year later, on 29 May 2018, Mansoor was sentenced under vague charges of “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols, including its leaders\u201d, “publishing false information to damage the UAE\u2019s reputation abroad\u201d and \u201cportraying the UAE as a lawless land.\u201d He received a sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of 1,000,000 UAE Dirhams (US$272,000), three years of probation after completion of his sentence, and confiscation of his electronic devices. On 31 December 2018, the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAE\u2019s Government actions against Mansoor have been widely criticised. For instance, on 4 October 2018, the European Parliament adopted a resolution<\/a> condemning Mansoor\u2019s \u201charassment, persecution and detention, and calling for his release.\u201d In May 2019, after he ended a month-long hunger strike to protest his unjust conviction and his detention conditions in Al-Sadr prison, a group of UN Special Rapporteurs<\/a> stated that his conditions of detention \u201cviolate[d] basic international human rights standards and risk[ed] taking an irrevocable toll on Mr Mansoor\u2019s health.\u201d In September 2019, Mansoor was severely beaten<\/a> for continuing his protests and he undertook yet another hunger strike. Nevertheless, he continues to be held in an isolation cell with no running water or bed and is not permitted to leave his cell except for family visits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September 2019, the annual report of the UN Secretary General about reprisals against those who cooperate with the UN mechanisms cited Mansoor\u2019s case. This was the fourth time that the Secretary General had denounced reprisals against him, having previously raised concerns in 2014, 2017 and 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is a tragedy and a disgrace for the UAE that this Tuesday, on 22 October of the UAE\u2019s \u2018Year of Tolerance\u2019, Ahmed Mansoor will turn 50, alone in a prison cell in such deplorable conditions, simply for exercising his fundamental right to free speech and for speaking out against human rights violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n