2023-06-01 01:04:00
Amnesty International has affirmed today that the States that will participate in the Bonn conference on climate change —which will start on June 5 and will help set the agenda for COP 28 in Dubai, to be held later this year— should urge the United Arab Emirates to improve its dismal human rights record to ensure the success of The conference.
In the joint statement in which Amnesty International participates, entitled The Human Rights Situation in the UAE ahead of COP28 (The human rights situation in the United Arab Emirates before COP 28) are identified the main human rights dangers threatening the success of COP 28 in the United Arab Emiratessuch as the crackdown on the right to free expression and the closure of civic space, the danger of digital espionage and surveillance, and host country opposition to accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels.
“The success of COP 28 is vital for human rights and for the planet. This year, all states must commit to accelerating the phase-out of all fossil fuels and staying on the right path to avoid further worsening of climate change,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Regional Director. from Africa.
“However, on the way to a conference with such results lurks both the danger of effective closure of civic space in the United Arab Emirates as the well-known Emirati practice of using digital surveillance to spy on critics of the country and the resistance of the Emirates to the gradual abandonment of the production and use of fossil fuels”.
“COP 28 must be a forum in which civil society can participate freely and without fear, in which indigenous peoples and groups and communities affected by climate change can share their experiences and shape policies without being intimidated and in the that the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful protest are protected. The Bonn conference lays the foundation for COP 28, and those who will participate in it should take the opportunity to make clear the need for change in the United Arab Emirates.”
Civil society, shut down
Civil society and the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly – essential for the success of the conference – are conspicuous by their absence in the United Arab Emirates. Emirati legislation prohibits criticizing the “State and its rulers” and punishes, including life imprisonment or the death penalty, association with any group opposed to the “government system” and imprecise “crimes”, such as “attacks against unity national” or against “the interests of the State”.
In 2011, the government responded with ferocious repression to a public petition signed by hundreds of citizens calling for democratic reforms: dozens of people—law professionals, academics, and civil servants—were imprisoned, while the The board of directors of the Emirati Lawyers Association, two of whose former presidents had signed the pro-democracy petition, was dissolved. Both former presidents remain in prison.
spyware on phones
For some time now, the Emirati government has been trying to spy on human rights defenders and other critical voices through digital means. Among the people who have been victims of this is Ahmed Mansoor —a recipient of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders— who was arrested in 2017 for his peaceful activism, including his social media posts. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, accused of “insulting the prestige of the United Arab Emirates”.
Both investigations by journalists and civil society organizations and a British court ruling have concluded that the United Arab Emirates is probably behind the digital surveillance to which numerous public figures have been subjected, including the late Emirati defender from the human rights Alaa al-Siddiq and a member of the British House of Lords. The country is also suspected of persecuting writers and editors for international publications, such as the Financial Times, The Economist and The Wall Street Journal..
Given the Emirates’ track record, there are reasons to believe that delegations and individuals from civil society attending COP 28 could be illegally subjected to digital espionage.
Expand Fossil Fuel Production
The UAE’s own climate policies are of deep concern at COP 28. The country’s appointee to chair the conference — Sultan Al Jaber — also heads the state-owned oil company, ADNOC, which is among the largest producers of hydrocarbons in the world and is putting into practice aggressive plans to expand fossil fuel production.
While, on the one hand, Sultan Al Jaber and the United Arab Emirates have announced their commitment to transition to clean energy, on the other, the approach they have taken does not lead to the reduction of fossil fuels. On the contrary, such an approach often entails promoting technologies that have not been proven in practice, such as carbon capture, utilization and storage, to limit emissions. The COP 28 president-designate is promoting a similar approach in this year’s negotiations on climate change, as what he advocates is phasing out emissions from fossil fuels, not abandoning their production and use.
In the words of Heba Morayef, “The United Arab Emirates often talks about environmentally friendly ways of producing energy, but very frequently, what they are really trying to do is hide their intentions to increase the production of hydrocarbons. We cannot allow you to use the COP 28 presidency to promote that approach on a global scale. At COP 28, the acceleration of the gradual phase out of fossil fuels must be a priority, since, otherwise, we are bound to exceed the agreed limits for the increase in global temperature, with increasingly devastating consequences for humanity”.
Additional information
COP 28 is the 28th annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an instrument around which global initiatives revolve to try to avoid climate change of catastrophic proportions, limiting the increase in global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. COP 28 will be held in Dubai, from November 30 to December 12. The Bonn Conference on Climate Change, which will take place from June 5 to 15, is a kind of prelude to the COP.
Last year, COP 27 was held in Egypt as the government of President Abdel Fattah al Sisi continued to brutally suppress dissent. The Egyptian authorities’ disregard for human rights translated into violations that took place before and during the conference, including in the UN-controlled area that is supposedly off-limits to any government intimidation and surveillance.
Aside from concerns related to civic space, digital surveillance and climate policy, the UAE’s human rights record is poor in protecting migrant workers from arbitrary detention and expulsion from the country and against labor exploitation, regarding the equality of men and women before the law and regarding the criminalization of consensual sexual relations between adults. In the armed conflicts in Libya and Yemen, the country’s direct and indirect intervention has implicated it in serious violations of international law. Amnesty International has prepared a comprehensive report with recommendations on these concerns. In the next link You will find the complete list of Amnesty International’s recommendations to States with a view to the Bonn conference on climate change and COP28.
#dismal #human #rights #record #United #Arab #Emirates