human rights defender
Amina Al-Abdouli
Actions and Campaigns
Urgent support needed
Abdouli has lost vision in one of her eyes. She is continually being denied medical care despite her deteriorating condition.
HRD's year of birth
1982
HRD's Gender
Woman
Type of HRD
- Journalist/Blogger
HRD's thematic area of engagement
- Other
Current Status
In prison (sentenced)
HRD's bio and work
Amina Al-Abdouli is an Emirati citizen who expressed solidarity with the Syrian people during the uprising by writing about their suffering on social media, particularly Twitter. Her comments on the situation in Syria attracted the attention of UAE authorities, leading to her being interrogated by security forces and prevented from traveling to perform Umrah in 2012. Despite this, she continued to tweet about the suffering of Syrian people under an alias. Her activism, particularly in relation to human rights, persisted even after her arrest, as she sent voice recordings from prison to UN special rapporteurs, describing the harsh conditions faced by female prisoners in Al Wathba Prison.
Al-Abdouli is a mother of five children.
Detained since
Nov 19, 2015
Charge(s)
- Creating disturbances
- Defamation
- Spreading fake news
Sentence
8 years in prison
Latitude: 23.54585959753629
Longitude: 54.32642274685504
Geolocation of detention
Country or area of detention
Region of detention
- Asia: Western Asia
Location of detention - City/Town
Current whereabouts unknown
Allegations / reports of ill-treatment
Upon Abdouli’s arrest, she was subjected to forced disappearance and severe acts of torture. During interrogation, she was subjected to beatings, threats against her family, and was coerced into signing a written confession that she was not allowed to read. After three months of detention, it was reported that Abdouli began to lose vision in her left eye due to repeated beatings. Furthermore, Al-Abdouli has been subjected to poor conditions in prison, assaults by inmates, solitary confinements. At no point for any of her trials was she allowed legal representation. This mistreatment caused Abdouli to go on several hunger strikes over the years demanding the improvement of her situation in prison.
Al-Abdouli has sent a series of voice recordings and letters in an effort to raise awareness of her suffering, the last of which was made in 2020. Abdouli’s mental and physical health has suffered severely in her detention. She continues to be denied medical care for her condition, as well as access to sanitary towels and clean water.
Recent case update / evolution
On October 31, 2016, Al Abdouli was sentenced to five years in prison, and a fine of 500,000 AED, with no right of appeal. She was charged with inciting hatred against the state and disturbing public order; undermining the reputation of the state institutions and publishing false information to endanger the state’s relations with its allies, on the basis of the Cybercrime Law. On July 30, 2019 she was brought before the Federal State Security prosecution and three new charges were brought against her, namely leaking wrong information, affecting the reputation of the UAE and Al Wathba prison negatively, and causing problems between countries. On April 28, 2021, she was sentenced to three years in prison for spreading and leaking false information from inside the prison.
Abdouli remains arbitrarily detained in prison despite the end of her combined 8-year sentence. According to the latest update in September 2021, she was transferred from Al Wathba prison in summer of 2020, but her current whereabouts are unknown.
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