On 29 March 2017, Dr. Nasser bin Ghaith was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was convicted for “posting false information” about UAE leaders and their policies and posting false information in order to harm the reputation and stature of the State and one of its institutions” based on comments he made on Twitter stating that he had not been given a fair trial in an earlier case known as the “UAE 5”, in which he and four other Emiratis where prosecuted on charges of “publicly insulting” the countries’ leaders over comments posted online.Dr. Bin Ghaith was also accused of allegedly “communicating and cooperating with members of the banned Al Islah organization” referring to visits and meetings with members of the “UAE94”, a group of government critics and advocates of reform tried jointly in 2013 and sentenced to long prison terms. He was also accused of allegedly “communicating and cooperating with” the banned Emirates Ummah Party, based on a presentation he was invited to make on the Islamic Economy by a member of the Ummah party, in his capacity as a professor of economics. On 10 July 2024, the Abu Dhabi Federal Appeals Court meted out sentences ranging from between 10 years to life in prison for 53 defendants in the UAE’s second largest unfair mass trial which is known as the UAE84 case. Dr. Nasser Bin Ghaith was sentenced in this trial to additional 15 years in prison on allegations of “cooperating with the terrorist organisation and supporting it in articles and tweets he published on social media, knowing its anti-state objectives. Dr. Bin Ghaith began a liquid-only hunger strike in November 2018 while being detained in Al-Razeen prison. During the hunger strike, he only ate a small amount of food a handful of times and his health has severely deteriorated. He was protesting against the prison authorities’ ill-treatment of detainees, including denial of access to medical care and inconsistency of family visits. Dr Nasser was demanding his own release following the presidential pardon granted to British academic Matthew Hedges on 26 November 2018, a week after he was sentenced to life in prison on spying charges.