The United Arab Emirates (UAE) likes to portray itself as a modern, progressive country—a nation on the rise. The home to the glittering skyscrapers and nightclubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi was last month listed among the top 10 countries of the Global Soft Power Index for the first time—ahead of Australia and Sweden and just behind...
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have joined 40 other rights groups to express their “deep concern” over the UAE’s “sustained assault on human rights and freedoms” as the Gulf state prepares to host the 28th United Nations global climate talks (COP28) later this year. “For more than 10 years, UAE authorities have been unjustly detaining...
Far out on the Arabian Sea one night in February, 2018, Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, the fugitive daughter of Dubai’s ruling emir, marvelled at the stars. The voyage had been rough. Since setting out by dinghy and Jet Ski a few days before, she had been swamped by powerful waves, soaking the belongings...
Climate Home spoke with migrant workers in the UAE, who face harsh conditions and a lack of transparency when risk turns deadly. After four years working in construction in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Amer, a 23-year-old migrant labourer from Pakistan decided to move to the oil and gas sector in search of better...
“UAE climate event organisers warn speakers not to ‘criticise corporations,” Speakers at a climate and health conference in the United Arab Emirates were told not to protest or “criticise corporations” in a warning that cited the Gulf state’s laws, alarming campaigners ahead of the country hosting the UN’s COP28 climate summit this year. Organisers advised...
‘Stay silent on human rights to strike deals, Gulf states tell UK’, 13 March 2023 “Shut up about human rights if you want to make deals in the Middle East. That’s the warning from a gulf state minister ahead of trade negotiations due to begin Monday, as Britain seeks to deepen economic ties in the...
As the next host of COP28, scheduled for the end of 2023, the United Arab Emirates has become a mecca of international sanctions evasion, and both Russians and Syrians are taking advantage. From November 30 to December 12, 2023, the United Arab Emirates Confederation will host COP28. Not only is Dubai, which is considered a...
Security guards, cleaners and hospitality staff at Dubai’s Expo 2020 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are allegedly working in highly abusive conditions that may amount to forced labour, according to a human rights group. Migrant workers employed at the international fair in the UAE – taking place now after being delayed by Covid – allege they...
Human Rights Violations at Home, Abroad (Beirut) – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was responsible for serious human rights violations at home and abroad in 2020, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2021. The government held peaceful critics in jail, fostered labor abuses against low-paid migrant workers, and contributed to abuses abroad in Libya and Yemen....
Sıtkı Ayan, the businessman helping Tehran sell oil, dodged US sanctions for years On March 22 of 2021, several of the world’s most dangerous men descended on Beirut’s historic seaside Summerland Hotel — not to swim in the Mediterranean or explore the sumptuous resort’s “Le Beach Pop Up,” but to talk Turkey. The meeting was...