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The UAE on Wednesday said that it was dedicated to improving the protection of human rights, and criticized Amnesty International for its “one sided and inaccurate” accusations.
“The UAE will continue its work to strengthen the protection of human rights. There is no freedom here: Silencing dissent in the UAE”, the foreign ministry said, referring to the rights watchdog’s report on the issue.
In its report, Amnesty International spoke of a “climate of fear” and the “extreme lengths” to which authorities in the UAE have gone to stamp out any opposition or calls for reform. The watchdog had said that the UAE needs to execute “swift and concrete steps” to prove that it is committed to the protection of human rights.
Dozens of Egyptian and Emirati Islamists have been imprisoned for forming Muslim Brotherhood cells; the organization is outlawed in Egypt, and has been accused of trying to overthrow the Gulf monarchies.
According to Amnesty International, over 100 government critics and activists have either been charged with or thrown in jail for cybercrime or politically motivated national security offences since 2011. It also said that over 60 of them are still in prison.
The ministry countered by saying that arrests cited in Amnesty’s report were the result of “thorough investigations”. It also insisted that the people arrested were not involved in peaceful groups asking for political debate, saying that they were members of organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood which sought to “overthrow the UAE government”.
“No state can simply stand idly by in the face of such a threat”, it said in its statement.
The menace they pose is “too real”, the ministry added, insisting that the UAE “represents an alternative vision of a stable, peaceful, moderate and modernizing society”.
“The UAE has made impressive progress in developing its governance institutions and building a tolerant and multicultural society in which people of more than 200 different nationalities live harmoniously together”, it said.