Rights Groups Urge British PM to Press UAE on 'Torture'
Several human rights groups urged British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday to press the UAE's president on alleged torture, including of Britons, and the "unfair trial" of dissidents.
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan is scheduled to begin his first official visit to Britain as president on Monday.
"Cameron should challenge the deteriorating human rights record of the United Arab Emirates during a state visit by the country's president to Britain next week," said a statement by eight groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
"The UAE has become a country where people who speak their mind get locked up, and those who get locked up face torture" said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director.
"Given that British citizens are now among those being abused, the British prime minister needs to show some backbone and break his silence on the UAE's increasingly poor human rights record," she added in the statement.
She was referring to three Britons arrested last July on drug charges and said to have been tortured in detention, a charge the UAE has denied.
The groups, which also include Alkarama, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Frontline, Gulf Center for Human Rights, and Reprieve, urged Cameron to raise the issue of "widespread abuses."
A letter also urged Cameron to evoke the case of 94 Emirati dissidents on trial on charges of forming an organization that plotted to seize power. The group, which includes 13 women, is said to be linked to the group Al-Islah, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"There's a suspicion that the UAE's considerable wealth helps shield it from criticism over its disturbing human rights record," said Allan Hogarth, head of policy and government affairs at Amnesty International UK.
"David Cameron has got to dispel this impression with some straight talking. Sheikh Khalifa needs to be left in no doubt that his country's human rights record is simply unacceptable," he added in the statement.
Kate Higham, of Reprieve, said the "torture" of the three Britons should be "top of the agenda" during Sheikh Khalifa's visit.
"Rolling out the red carpet for a regime which has tortured our fellow citizens will be deeply unsettling for many Britons," she said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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