Human Rights Watch and the Gulf Center for Human Rights said today, Friday, that the UAE authorities retaliated against detained human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, after regional media published a letter he wrote from prison detailing his ill-treatment while in detention and his “extremely unfair” trial after July 2021.
According to the two organizations, the punitive measures included transferring Mansour, 51, to a smaller and more isolated cell, preventing him from basic medical care, confiscating his reading glasses, and calling on the United Nations and "UAE allies" to demand the immediate release of the human rights activist.
Mansoor, the human rights defender, is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Al-Sadr Prison, where he is reported to be held in a 4-square-meter cell without a mattress, with limited or no access to sunlight, showers and potable water.
The detained human rights defender went on hunger strike twice in 2019 to protest his treatment and conditions in prison, and his health deteriorated as a result of a hunger strike that lasted for 45 days, and according to reports, he was denied the necessary medical treatment.
In March 2017, the authorities arrested Mansour after accusing him of "insulting the prestige, prestige and symbols of the UAE."