After eight months of detention, the ‘UAE5', as they became known, were convicted of insulting the rulers of the UAE following a trial riddled with inconsistencies and denounced by human rights organisations. On the following day, they were pardoned by the President, doubtless wishing to appear the benevolent father-figure forgiving his wayward citizenry, but their criminal records remained, making it impossible for them to obtain the ‘certificate of good conduct' necessary to work and even marry in the UAE. Almost immediately, the state security cracked down again, stripping six members of the Islamist Jamiat Al-Islah wa Tawjih (Association for Reform and Guidance) movement of their citizenship. Islah was one of the oldest and most organised groups in the UAE, dating its history back to 1974, and with a strong foothold in the country's educational and charitable sectors. Although two of their number reached Cabinet positions in the 1970s, their growing strength alarmed the government, and they were steadily marginalised during the 1980s and 1990s.
Worryingly for the federal government in Abu Dhabi, Islah remains particularly strong in the northerly emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. Only an hour away from Dubai by road, visitors to Ras al-Khaimah (and the other northern emirates of Sharjah, Ajman and Umm al-Qaiwain, as well as Fujairah on the east coast) are struck by the differential levels of development and the visible manifestations of poverty and deprivation. It is a world-away from the glitz and the glamour of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and home to many Emirati nationals who complain of inequalities in living standards and poorer levels of public services, including high rates of unemployment. In these conditions, many hold sympathies for Islah, which claims to have some 20,000 members. Government paranoia in Abu Dhabi centres on Islah's potential to rock the boat in the wake of the Arab Spring, as it draws upon similar narratives of political oppression, economic distress, and perceived lack of opportunities that proved so potent a tool of mass mobilisation in Egypt and Tunisia.
This obsession with national security formed the prelude to an intensifying campaign of repression intended to stamp out the Islah threat once and for all. 50 people have been detained since March 2012 with 36 arrested since 16 July alone. The whereabouts of 38 of the men remain unknown, and Amnesty International has expressed concerns that the detainees are at risk of being tortured. One of the original ‘UAE5,' Ahmed Adul Khaleq, was re-arrested in May and deported to Thailand on 16 July, on a Comoros Island passport, after being told by prison officials that he would be imprisoned indefinitely without formal charge if he refused to leave. Abdul Khaleq is a member of the stateless (‘bedoon') community and founder of the Emaraty Bedoon website that sought to draw attention to their plight. His family has been harassed by the UAE authorities and his six sisters have been threatened with arrest if he resumes his activism while in Thailand.
Of additional concern is that some of the arrests were reportedly carried out by un-uniformed men said to be non-Emiratis. These could be members of an 842-strong group of Columbian soldiers and former soldiers said to be operating within the UAE; according to a May 2011 New York Times exposé, they were hired by former Blackwater head Eric Prince at the behest of the Abu Dhabi authorities to defend the UAE from terrorist attacks and internal revolt. Explosively, the Times article claimed that Prince had given orders to recruit only non-Muslims, from South Africa and the French Foreign Legion in addition to Columbia, as Muslim soldiers "could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims."
Already, the number of arrests is unprecedented in scale and scope. Although mostly from the poorer Northern Emirates, they also include public sector officials from Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and representatives of some of the UAE's largest and most influential tribes, such as the al-Suweidi, the al-Nuaimi, and the al-Shamsi. A cousin of the ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, Sheikh Sultan bin Kayed Al-Qassimi, was detained in April in a sign that royal rank no longer offers protection. One of the most high-profile arrests was that of Dr Mohamed al-Roken, whose whereabouts remain unknown following his detention on 17 July. Al-Roken was one of the most prominent human rights lawyers in the UAE, and had served as co-defense counsel for two of the ‘UAE5' in 2011. Disturbingly, when another lawyer (Salim al-Shehhi) went to the State Security Prosecution office to represent al-Roken, he himself was detained.
