Human Rights Ambassador Condemns Abu Dhabi Court for Sentencing Twitter Activist Abdullah Al-Hadidi

UAE needs to uarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in the UAE are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals...

(YORK, UK) - A court in the United Arab Emirates has sentenced an activist to 10 months in jail after he tweeted from a courtroom where his father was being tried.

Abdullah al-Hadidi's father is one of 94 people on trial for plotting the overthrow of the government.

Abdullah Al-Hadidi was originally arrested in Sharjah in the very early hours of Friday 22 March 2013 at his apartment, where he lives with his wife and three children.

The arrest was undertaken by plain clothes security forces who failed to present an official arrest warrant.

Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes, said new cyber crime law that came into effect in November of last year was designed to suppress dissent in the UAE. He is urging authorities in the United Arab Emirates to immediately and unconditionally release Abdullah Al-Hadidi, as the human rights group Front Line Defenders believes that he is being held solely as a result of his legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights...

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HH Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum
Vice-President and Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
PO Box 2838
Dubai
United Arab Emirates

Your Excellency.

I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-news.com.

On 8 April 2013, the Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance sentenced twitter activist and human rights defender Mr Abdullah Al-Hadidi to a ten-month jail term on charges of publishing on Twitter a “dishonest account” of a public hearing at the Federal Supreme Court on case No. 17 of 2013 (aka UAE94). Originally, Abdullah Al-Hadidi faced two charges. However, he was acquitted on the second charge, which was the use of force against police personnel from the General Command of Abu Dhabi Police.

Abdullah Al-Hadidi has played an important role in documenting what happens inside the courtroom, to which he has access unlike international observers and the media. The human rights defender also played a key role in coordination between families in order to compile the defence evidence of videos and documents.

Abdullah Al-Hadidi was originally arrested in Sharjah in the very early hours of Friday 22 March 2013 at his apartment, where he lives with his wife and three children. The arrest was undertaken by plain clothes security forces who failed to present an official arrest warrant. The human rights defender was then taken to Sharjah police station where his family tried to have him released on bail, but the request was denied by the police. Later that day, Abdullah Al-Hadidi was transferred to Abu Dhabi. His family were told that he was transferred to Al-Khaledyya police station because one of the court security guards had filed a complaint against him. The family later found out that this was the same security guard who had grabbed the human rights defender and forced him out of the courtroom during the last hearing of the UAE94 detainees on 19 March 2013.

On 28 March 2013 Abdullah Al-Hadidi was charged under Article 265 of the Penal Code for publishing details of a public trial session “without probity and in bad faith.” The court invoked Article 46 of the 2012 federal decree on cyber-crime, which incriminates the use of the Internet or information technology. The judge at the Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance denied bail to the human rights defender.

In its meeting of 2 April 2013, the Court of First Instance allowed the defence to submit its documents before sentencing. In the next session held on 4 April 2013, the defence witnesses, all of whom are families of detainees of UAE94 case, testified that the human rights defender did not attack the policeman who removed him from the courtroom. The witnesses were not questioned about the issue of reporting on Twitter.

I believe that the prison sentence against Abdullah Al-Hadidi is solely motivated by his peaceful and legitimate human rights work, and views this act as part of an ongoing campaign of judicial harassment against human rights defenders in the UAE.

I urge the authorities in the United Arab Emirates to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Abdullah Al-Hadidi, as Front Line Defenders believes that he is being held solely as a result of his legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights;

2. Take all necessary measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity and security of Abdullah Ab-Hadidi while in detention;

3. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in the UAE are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.

Yours Sincerely,
William Nicholas Gomes
Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com
www.williamnicholasgomes.com

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Salem-News.com Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist and author was born on 25 December, 1985 in Dhaka. As an investigative journalist he wrote widely for leading European and Asian media outlets.

He is also active in advocating for free and independent media and journalists’ rights, and is part of the free media movement, Global Independent Media Center – an activist media network for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate telling of the truth. He worked for Italian news agency Asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011, on that time he was accredited as a free lance journalist by the press information department of Bangladesh. During this time he has reported a notable numbers of reports for the news agency which were translated into Chinese and Italian and quoted by notable number of new outlets all over the world.He, ideologically, identifies himself deeply attached with anarchism. His political views are often characterized as “leftist” or “left-wing,” and he has described himself as an individualist anarchist.