Prisoners of Conscience in the UAE

It has recently been reported that five activists are being held in custody in the United Arab Emirates for insulting Emirati rulers and "perpetrating acts that pose a threat to state security." These accusations might lead one to think that the five are violent criminals plotting unspeakable terrorist acts in an attempt to overthrow the government. As it turns out, however, their "crime" is simply having petitioned the UAE rulers for a more equitable distribution of the country's oil wealth and universal suffrage for the Emirati people. Amnesty International has described the five activists as "prisoners of conscience."

To read a recent article about the arrests log onto the following site:

http://en.news.maktoob.com/20090000708456/UAE_confirms_five_activists_held_in_custody/Article.htm

Snuffing out Democracy in the UAE

The United Arab Emirates is in many ways a great place to live and offers plenty of interesting things to do. For example this past weekend the WOMAD (World of Music & Dance) festival once again took place in Abu Dhabi. A number of great bands played during each of the 3 nites, including Baaba Maal (Mali), Paloma Faith (UK), Jimmy Cliff (Jamaica), Speed Caravan (France/Algeria), and Hindi Zahra (Morocco). At the same time, however, the UAE's not such a great place when it comes to its human rights record. Within the past few days three pro-democracy activists have been arrested here (including an economics professor from the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi branch) and the UAE government has shut down their Facebook forum (known as Hewar, meaning "Dialog" in English). Here's an on-line article about the arrests:

http://en.news.maktoob.com/20090000682096/UAE_police_hold_third_activist_colleague/Article.htm

And here's the Facebook site, which is now blocked here in the UAE:

www.facebook.com/pages/UAE-hewar/138966642807420