By Miriam Scharf

The United Arab Emirates is the 19th richest country the world, with GDP of US$44,000 a head, mostly generated from oil exports. The UAE is able to produce oil cheaply, its oil industry is likely to be viable for a long time, and this is the government’s stated intention. 

COP28’s president-designate Sultan Al Jaber says he backs a “phase out of fossil fuel emissions” but as head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the UAE’s national oil company, he has plans to ramp up its oil extraction capacity.

The UAE appointments to its advisory board for Cop28 include the chair of an Indian gas company, the former head of China’s national oil company, the ex-boss of the UK’s BP oil firm and the CEO of an Emirati oil and gas producer.

On Monday 19 June, ALQST, an Arabian Peninsula and Gulf Human Rights Project, remembered their late Executive Director Alaa Al-Siddiq and her inspiring life, struggles for justice, and immense legacy for human rights. They demonstrated outside the UAE embassy and delivered a petition demanding an end to imprisonment, abuse and harassment of detained critics, human rights defenders, political opposition members, and their families.

ALQST’s work of monitoring and documenting violations of human rights addresses rights issues relevant to the Arabian Peninsula states. UAE hosting COP 28 opens an opportunity to focus on their violations of human rights. 

The UAE has a consistent record of assaults on human rights and freedoms, including targeting human rights activists, enacting repressive laws, and using the criminal justice system as a tool to eliminate the human rights movement. These policies have led to the closure of civic space, severe restrictions on freedom of expression, both online and offline and the criminalisation of peaceful dissent.
 
For over a decade, UAE authorities have unjustly detained at least 60 Emirati human rights defenders, civil society activists, and political dissidents who were arrested in 2012 because of their demands for reform and democracy. Some from this group were subjected to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment. They were sentenced to between 7 and 15 years in prison. Most of these prisoners have completed their sentences yet remain in arbitrary detention to date. UAE authorities refuse to release them, alleging that they continue to pose a “terrorist threat,” based on vague laws that allow their indefinite detention, in flagrant violation of international human rights law. Some have been denied family visits and communication with their families for up to five years. 

UAE’s hosting COP28 must focus the world’s attention on these human rights violations. A joint statement by over 40 global and regional human rights organisations in May 2023 made the following demands:

• Immediately and unconditionally release all those detained solely for the exercise of their human rights.
• End all abuse and harassment of detained critics, human rights defenders, political opposition members, and their families.
• Amend all repressive laws that violate human rights, including the Anti-Terrorism Law, the Penal Code, and the Cybercrime Law, and bring them into line with international human rights standards.
• Close all secret detention centres.
• End all restrictions on civil society organisations, and allow the establishment of entirely independent civil society institutions.
• End restrictions on civic space and uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly to enable meaningful participation of civil society and indigenous peoples at COP28.
• Ensure an ambitious and human rights-consistent outcome of COP28, including through but not limited to the adoption of a call to all states to phase out all fossil fuels and all fossil fuels subsidies to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

The climate movement should learn from COP27 in Egypt’s that severe restrictions on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly seriously will hinder the full and meaningful participation of journalists, activists, human rights defenders, civil society, youth groups, and indigenous peoples’ representatives. Some of the posters at the UAE embassy protest demanded ‘No to UAE Greenwashing’. Climate groups, human rights activists, and unions here must take up this call.

What you can do:

• Pass a motion in your union branch in solidarity with activists in UAE and the Gulf region who are defending human rights and calling for democracy and climate justice
• Join the days of action to end fossil fuels 15-17 September #EndFossilFuels #FastFairForever