Additional information for Weekly Action of 21st June

Make a key to send to Khaldoon al Mubarak to ask him to free human rights defenders.

Why are we writing to Khaldoon al Mubarak?

Khaldoon Al Mubarak holds senior positions in the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). His brothers also hold senior positions in the government. He has close connections to the president and vice president, Sheikh Mansour. He can influence what happens in the UAE. He is also the director of Manchester City Football Club.

Amnesty International has many concerns about human rights abuses in the UAE, which is one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. There is no freedom of speech and no press freedom. People who speak out about the ruling royal family are imprisoned, have their citizenship removed or are prevented from leaving the country.

The local Manchester Amnesty group campaigns for the release of two men who worked to promote human rights in the UAE; they are both well known around the world for this work.

Mohammed al-Roken

Mohammed Al-Roken is a human rights lawyer and completed a PhD in law at Warwick University. He was president of the Association of Jurists in the UAE and was on the frontline of providing legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses. He has written books on human rights, freedom of expression and counter-terrorism laws. 

In 2011 he signed an online petition along with 113 other lawyers and academics calling for more democratic processes in the UAE. In 2012, along with many other people, he was imprisoned for ten years because of this campaign. He remains in prison, almost two years beyond his release date.

Ahmed Mansoor

Ahmed Mansoor is a poet and blogger and worked with human rights organisations in the Gulf states. He highlighted the mass detention of people in 2012 and the unfair trial in 2013, so called the UAE 94, when people like Mohammed Al-Roken were accused of plotting to overthrow the government. He won an international award for this work which he continued despite harassment and spying from the UAE state. He was arrested in 2017 and accused of using social media platforms to "publish false and misleading information". UN human rights experts considered his arrest and imprisonment "a direct attack on the legitimate work of human rights defenders in the UAE".

Many governments have encouraged the UAE to release these human rights activists. In 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning human rights abuses in the UAE, including the persecution of human rights defenders. The resolution specifically calls for “the immediate and unconditional release of Ahmed Mansoor and Mohammed al-Roken, among others.

Manchester has gained so much from the money of the UAE authorities. Please help us fight for the human rights of those Emiratis who have lost so much by campaigning for the same human rights that we have in Manchester.