human rights defender
Ahmed Mansoor
Actions and Campaigns
Ahmed Mansoor
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER
Urgent support needed
Ahmed Mansoor's health has deteriorated significantly in prison, including his eyesight. He was diagnosed with hypertension later in 2018 and has not been given medication to treat it, putting him at increased risk for heart disease and stroke.
Organization affiliation
- Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
- Human Rights Watch (HRW)
HRD's year of birth
1969
HRD's Gender
Man
Type of HRD
- NGO member
HRD's thematic area of engagement
- Civil and political rights
Current Status
In prison (sentenced)
HRD's bio and work
Ahmed Mansoor Ali Abdullah Al-Abd Al-Shehhi is an Emirati engineer and human rights defender. He is on the advisory boards of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) and was awarded the 2015 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Since 2006, he focused on initiatives concerning freedom of expression, and civil and political rights. He regularly raised concerns on arbitrary detention, torture or ill or degrading treatment, failure to meet international standards for fair trials, non-independence of the judiciary, domestic laws that violate international law, and other violations of civil rights. He was one of the initiators of the 3 March 2011 petition that called for democratic reform in the UAE. Shortly afterwards, he was jailed with four others in connection with the online discussion forum UAEHewar.net, in what became widely known as the UAE5 case. He was accused of publicly insulting the UAE leadership and was sentenced to three years imprisonments, but released one day after the verdict on presidential pardon after spending nearly eight months in jail. He has been jailed since March 2017 for his human rights activism, including his posts criticising human rights violations on social media.
Detained since
Mar 20, 2017
Charge(s)
- Defamation
- Spreading fake news
Sentence
25 years
Allegations / reports of ill-treatment
Ahmed Mansoor has been subjected to various forms of torture and ill-treatment since his arrest. For more than a year following his arrest, he was held in an unknown location with no access to a lawyer and only very limited visits with family. He has been held in solitary confinement and systematically denied any meaningful contact with other prisoners, in conditions that may amount to torture. Between December 2017 and March 2018, authorities took away his mattress and denied him adequate warm clothing and access to hot water, cleaning products, and books. Mansoor has only been permitted to leave his small cell for a limited number of family visits and only once has he been allowed outside for fresh air in the prison’s exercise yard. In September 2019, it was reported that he was tortured by prison guards in Al-Sadr prison. Mansoor went on several hunger strikes in protest of his ill-treatment. He started his first hunger strike for four weeks on 17 March 2019, but ended it after the authorities permitted him to phone his sick mother and go outside in the sun for the first time. He began the second hunger strike on 07 September 2019 after he was severely beaten by the prison guards to demand access to basic necessities and an end to his solitary confinement. During his second hunger strike, he was forced fed by the gurards. The hunger strike lasted for around 45 days, during which he lost 11 kilograms.
Latitude: 24.68021
Longitude: 54.66542
Geolocation of detention
Country or area of detention
Region of detention
- Asia: Western Asia
Location of detention - City/Town
Abu Dhabi
Location of detention - Facility
Al-Sadr prison
Recent case update / evolution
On May 29, 2018, Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of 1,000,000 Emirati Dirhams (around USD $270,000) based on charges related to damaging the country's reputation and spreading false information online. The court also ordered that he be placed under surveillance for three years after his release. On 31 December 2018, the UAE's State Security Court upheld the 10-year prison sentence. 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. Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced in this trial to additional 15 years in prison on allegations of “cooperating with a terrorist organisation and supporting it in articles and tweets he published on social media, knowing its anti-state objectives.
Attachments
Documented by
- Country(ies) of nationality
- HRD's year of birth
- 1969
- HRD's Gender
- Man
- Type of HRD
- NGO member
- HRD's thematic area of engagement
- Civil and political rights
- Organization affiliation
- Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
- Human Rights Watch (HRW)
- HRD's Picture
- HRD's bio and work
Ahmed Mansoor Ali Abdullah Al-Abd Al-Shehhi is an Emirati engineer and human rights defender. He is on the advisory boards of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) and was awarded the 2015 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. Since 2006, he focused on initiatives concerning freedom of expression, and civil and political rights. He regularly raised concerns on arbitrary detention, torture or ill or degrading treatment, failure to meet international standards for fair trials, non-independence of the judiciary, domestic laws that violate international law, and other violations of civil rights. He was one of the initiators of the 3 March 2011 petition that called for democratic reform in the UAE. Shortly afterwards, he was jailed with four others in connection with the online discussion forum UAEHewar.net, in what became widely known as the UAE5 case. He was accused of publicly insulting the UAE leadership and was sentenced to three years imprisonments, but released one day after the verdict on presidential pardon after spending nearly eight months in jail. He has been jailed since March 2017 for his human rights activism, including his posts criticising human rights violations on social media.
- Country or area of detention
- Region of detention
- Asia: Western Asia
- Location of detention - City/Town
- Abu Dhabi
- Location of detention - Facility
- Al-Sadr prison
- Geolocation of detention
Latitude: 24.68021
Longitude: 54.66542
- Geolocation of detention
- Detained since
- Mar 20, 2017
- Current Status
- In prison (sentenced)
- Charge(s)
- Defamation
- Spreading fake news
- Sentence
25 years
- Recent case update / evolution
On May 29, 2018, Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of 1,000,000 Emirati Dirhams (around USD $270,000) based on charges related to damaging the country's reputation and spreading false information online. The court also ordered that he be placed under surveillance for three years after his release. On 31 December 2018, the UAE's State Security Court upheld the 10-year prison sentence. 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. Ahmed Mansoor was sentenced in this trial to additional 15 years in prison on allegations of “cooperating with a terrorist organisation and supporting it in articles and tweets he published on social media, knowing its anti-state objectives.
- Allegations / reports of ill-treatment
Ahmed Mansoor has been subjected to various forms of torture and ill-treatment since his arrest. For more than a year following his arrest, he was held in an unknown location with no access to a lawyer and only very limited visits with family. He has been held in solitary confinement and systematically denied any meaningful contact with other prisoners, in conditions that may amount to torture. Between December 2017 and March 2018, authorities took away his mattress and denied him adequate warm clothing and access to hot water, cleaning products, and books. Mansoor has only been permitted to leave his small cell for a limited number of family visits and only once has he been allowed outside for fresh air in the prison’s exercise yard. In September 2019, it was reported that he was tortured by prison guards in Al-Sadr prison. Mansoor went on several hunger strikes in protest of his ill-treatment. He started his first hunger strike for four weeks on 17 March 2019, but ended it after the authorities permitted him to phone his sick mother and go outside in the sun for the first time. He began the second hunger strike on 07 September 2019 after he was severely beaten by the prison guards to demand access to basic necessities and an end to his solitary confinement. During his second hunger strike, he was forced fed by the gurards. The hunger strike lasted for around 45 days, during which he lost 11 kilograms.
- Protection actions and campaigns
- Urgent support needed
Ahmed Mansoor's health has deteriorated significantly in prison, including his eyesight. He was diagnosed with hypertension later in 2018 and has not been given medication to treat it, putting him at increased risk for heart disease and stroke.
- Documented by
- Consent status
- Consent to register, store and publish the information
sorted by
Date added
12 relationships, 11 entities