The organization called on the UAE to stop using the justice system as a weapon to eliminate the human rights movement in the country (Reuters)

Amnesty International has called on the UAE authorities to immediately release all arbitrarily detained prisoners and drop the charges against them.

In a statement, the organization also urged the UAE authorities to "put an end to their vicious assault on human rights and freedoms."

She said it was time for the UAE to stop "using the criminal justice system as a weapon to eradicate the human rights movement in the country."

This came in response to reports of "a new show trial during the climate conference exposing the authorities' shameful contempt for human rights."

On December 7, UAE authorities began a new mass trial, in which dozens of Emiratis, including prominent human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience, are being tried, some of whom have already spent a decade behind bars and now face "trumped-up" terrorism charges.

Aya Majzoub, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said the start of hearings in a new show mass trial amid what the UAE authorities have described as the most representative conference of the parties ever is a shocking illustration of their contempt for human rights.

She added that the timing appeared to be deliberately intended to send a clear message to the world that they would not tolerate the slightest forms of peaceful dissent and that the authorities had no intention of repairing the country's dire human rights record.

According to the organization, the COP28 climate conference clearly exposed the fear and repression "that hinder and stifle dissent in the United Arab Emirates, with demonstrations prohibited in the Green Zone, which is under the UAE's purely local jurisdiction, where activists fear the application of laws that criminalize criticism of the government."

The new mass trial is a joint trial of more than 80 defendants, including former victims of the mass trial such as Mohammed Al-Siddiq, the father of the late exiled Emirati human rights defender Alaa Al-Siddiq, prisoners of conscience such as Khalid Al-Nuaimi, Hadef Al-Owais, Nasser bin Ghaith and Sultan Al-Qasimi, and veteran human rights defenders such as Ahmed Mansoor and Mohammed Al-Roken.

Source: Human Rights Watch