In the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain Political Prisoners Suffer From Medical Negligence

One year after Alia Abdulnoor’s death due to medical negligence, the UAE, like its allies Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, are failing to provide political prisoners with adequate medical care in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Very little effort has been made to protect Emirati detainees including Ahmed Mansoor, Nasser bin Ghaith and Mohamed Al Roken. Human rights abuses have not stopped during this global health crisis, instead they have multiplied and manifested in new forms. Longstanding victims of human rights abuses in the Gulf states, particularly political activists holed up in overcrowded prisons and migrant workers living in cramped conditions, are at high risk of contracting the virus. Instead of responding mercifully autocratic rulers have chosen to exploit this pandemic.

Bahrain has taken the opportunity to further enact its policy of systematic discrimination against its Shia population, this was especially apparent when the Al-Khalifa regime went to great lengths to delay the repatriation of Bahraini’s stranded in Iran. Nine Bahrainis who contracted the coronavirus in Iran have now died. Instead of condemning these abuses of power and human rights, the UK has issued supportive statements and praised the approach of Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia through official government channels as well as through civil service and civil society actors including the British Military and the Tony Blair Institute. Early on in the crisis Professor John Ashton, a former British Director of Public Health flew out to Bahrain to provide advice to the Bahraini regime. He praised their response despite the harsh reality for Bahrainis stuck in Iran and political prisoners who have been left at high risk of contracting the virus.

Sir John Lorimer, Defence Senior Advisor to the Middle East, tweeted on Thursday 23rd April: “This week I spoke with the #Bahrain Defence Force Commander-in-Chief. We discussed various regional security issues and opportunities for #UK and Bahrain to work more closely. I also thanked him for Bahrain’s outstanding support to our logistics and maritime activities.”

In a UK parliamentary committee meeting on Thursday 23rd April Scottish MP John Nichson criticised the imminent takeover of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden defended the takeover saying: “We have good foreign relations with Saudi Arabia but also we’ve never been shy in raising all those human rights abuses that you’ve talked about and will continue to do so.”

News of the death of Saudi Arabian human rights activist Abdullah Al-Hamid emerged on Friday 24th April. UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard was quick to express her condolences; the UN Special Procedures have called for Saudi prisoners of conscience to be released from custody in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Right Livelihood Foundation which is based in Sweden declared in a statement that Abdullah Al Hamid was a victim of medical negligence. Sadly this scenario has become all too common in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE. Other victims include Saleh Abdelaziz el-Dhamiri a 60 year old Saudi political prisoner who died in August 2019, Sayed Khadem Abbas a 24 year old Bahraini political prisoner who died in February this year and Alia Abdulnoor a 39 year old Emirati woman who died in May 2019.

In a statement marking the anniversary of Alia’s death, the International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE commented: “Alia’s story, while shocking, is not an isolated incident. With the coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the globe, it is of the highest priority that all prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their human rights advocacy, are released. Keeping them in such conditions is paramount to a death sentence.”

James Cleverly, Minister of State for the MENA region, tweeted on Thursday 30th April: “UAE 🇦🇪 & UK 🇬🇧 teamwork continues — thanked @AnwarGargash today for the UAE’s support in the battle against coronavirus & the need to ensure @gavi @CEPIvaccines are fully funded. Also had a good conversation on Yemen & agreed the Riyadh Agreement must be implemented in full.”

The UAE has donated more to the global efforts to fight Covid 19 than any nation apart from China, and the UK has been a beneficiary of this aid, including a shipment of 60 tonnes of PPE. On the 5th April The Sunday Times revealed that the NHS were paying extortionate fees to rent the ExCel Centre in London Docklands where an NHS Nightingale field hospital has been set up. The ExCel hosts the controversial biannual DSEI arms fair; it is owned by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC), a private company established by decree of the Ruler of Abu Dhabi in 2005. ADNEC responded immediately to the Sunday Times controversy, in order to avert a PR disaster, they issued a public statement that all fees would be waived. Yet such generosity and goodwill has not been extended to Emirati prisoners of conscience who suffer in abject conditions and do not receive adequate medical treatment. Mohamed Bin Zayed has found time for phone calls with Bashar Assad, Tony Blair and Bill Gates, yet the widespread calls to free political prisoners remain unanswered.

Human rights abuses inside the UAE remain underreported in comparison to the UAE’s role in the conflicts in Libya and Yemen and their political interference in Egypt and Sudan. The coronavirus pandemic has become another means for the UAE to inflict torture and suffering on political prisoners who, if they contract the virus, do not know whether or not they would receive urgent medical care. A video report from an imprisoned Bahraini journalist Mahmoud Al Jaziri suggests that this has been the case for political prisoners in Bahrain. The UAE has a history of deliberately denying medical care to political prisoners prior to the pandemic, this has not changed despite its outset.

The UAE have sought to exploit this global crisis, the unilateral declaration of independence in South Yemen and Khalifa Haftar’s declaration of a mandate to rule all Libya represent two long term UAE foreign policy goals coming into fruition. Neither the USA nor Russia seem to approve of these bold moves, yet due to the impunity which the UAE currently enjoys, neither Washington nor Moscow can exert any real influence on Abu Dhabi without being prepared to sacrifice their own strategic interests in either the Gulf or elsewhere in the UAE’s expanding sphere of influence.

The way in which the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain consistently violate human rights in tandem and with impunity is mutually reinforcing. So long as neither of these states is held to account there is no imperative for either of them to initiate increasingly urgent reforms.