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A policeman enters Dubai’s Al-Awir central prison in the United Arab Emirates, 21 May 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images The recent death of Jordanian journalist Tayseer Al-Najjar from health complications contracted during a prison term in the UAE has raised alarm over the fate of thirteen prisoners of conscience, including two women activists, who remain in Emirati prisons despite serving their sentences.
This statement was originally published on gc4hr.org on 22 February 2021.
On every religious or national occasion, the higher authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) issue decrees to pardon convicted prisoners, a tradition that has been in place since the establishment of the state in 1971. The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) protests against the authorities’ continued failure to release prisoners of conscience, and to hold them long past the end of their sentences. One such prisoner, Jordanian