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Human Rights Activist  and CU Alumni Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years in United Arab Emirates prison for his social media posts about UAE government reform

GABI & NIKKI EDWARDS 

On May 29, 2018, CU Alumni Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The State Security Chamber of the Federal Appeal Court in the United Arab Emirates convicted Mansoor of, “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols, publish[ing] false information to damage [the] UAE’s reputation abroad, and portray[ing] the UAE as a lawless land,” according to Amnesty International. 

Mansoor is a father of four, blogger, poet, and a distinguished defender of human rights. He is also an engineer with a love for literature. Through CU, Mansoor received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical, Computer, & Energy Engineering and his Master’s in Telecommunications. Shortly after graduation he became a pioneer in his field  He received multiple awards from the school for his activism. 

Mansoor has been involved with human rights issues in the UAE since 2006, and continues to inform the international community of ongoing civil injustice there. Through social media and interviews with international media, he also speaks out more broadly on the injustices occurring throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

According to human rights organizations, the government of the UAE violates a number of fundamental human rights. There are reports of forced disappearances in the UAE, many foreign nationals and Emirati citizens have been abducted by the UAE government and illegally detained and tortured in undisclosed locations. For Mansoor’s efforts, he was awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015, which is a prestigious award presented by a Jury of 10 of the world’s leading human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs). According to Amnesty International, “he is a member of the advisory committee of the NGO Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, as well as the advisory board of the organization Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR).” Due to his humanitarian work, UAE authorities have had Mansoor under surveillance since 2011. According to Vice News, “Mansoor has faced repeated intimidation, harassment, physical assault, and death threats from the UAE authorities and their supporters. The authorities had placed him under physical and electronic surveillance.” 

In March 2011, Ahmed Mansoor and 132 reputable figures signed a petition for political reform in the UAE. However, the petition aggravated UAE authorities and in April he and four other activists were imprisoned. Once he was released from jail in 2012 he was continuously threatened and harmed. “He was assaulted twice in September 2012 at ‘Ajman University, where he had been studying law; the incident forced him to cease his legal studies. Amnesty International explained, “Ahmed Mansoor has been banned from traveling for a number of years. He was prevented from traveling to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders’ ceremony on [Oct. 6,] 2015, for which he was a finalist and the eventual winner. The UAE authorities had confiscated his passport when he was arrested in 2011 and have been refusing to return it.”  Implementing these prohibitive restrictions violates Mansoor’s right under the international human rights law to freedom of movement. Additionally, his car was stolen in 2013, and he had $140,000 stolen from his bank account. UAE authorities are inflicting unethically punitive measures on Mansoor for his peaceful human rights activism. 

Like Mansoor, many human right advocates who have criticized authoritative figures in the UAE have been severely mistreated or subjected to unfair trial and imprisonment. Amnesty International has stated, “The authorities have arrested, detained, and prosecuted more than 100 activists, human rights defenders and other critics of the government, on broad and sweeping national security-related or cybercrime charges and in proceedings that  fail to meet international fair trial standards."

 to meet international fair trial standards.” Mansoor’s release date is projected to be in May 2028, and the court has been ordered to place him under surveillance for three years following his release. Mansoor is currently being held in solitary confinement in the UAE and will remain there if there is no major action taken.