Activists held a day of protests on Saturday during the COP28 summit in Dubai. However, the rules of the game in the tightly controlled UAE imposed strict restrictions on what protesters could say, where they could march and what their signs could display.
The controls sometimes bordered on the absurd.
A small group of demonstrators protesting the detention of activists – one from Egypt and two from the United Arab Emirates – were not allowed to hold signs with their names written on them. Protesters were prohibited from “marching” from one venue to another, although they could walk between events.
One pro-Palestinian protester claimed he was told protesters couldn’t say “from the river to the sea.” In the wake of a brutal Hamas attack on Israel in October and the bombing of the Gaza Strip, the phrase was used by pro-Palestinians who mobilized to demand a single state on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Some Jews hear in this call a clear demand for the destruction of Israel.
“This is a shocking level of censorship in a space where protections for fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression, assembly and association have been guaranteed,” Joey Shea, president of the Associated Press, told the Associated Press. a researcher at the Human Rights Watch organization, specializing in the United Arab Emirates.
Just before the demonstration organized by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, demonstrators had to fold up signs bearing the names of the detainees, even after having already crossed out messages about them. The order came about 10 minutes before the demonstration began from the United Nations (UN), which said it could not guarantee the security of the demonstration.
Speaking during the demonstration, Mr.me Shea also had to avoid naming the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, in accordance with UN rules.
“The absurdity of what happened in this action today speaks volumes,” she added.
The Emirati government and the Emirati organization responsible for COP28 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Opponents imprisoned
The demonstrators carried placards bearing the image of Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor and Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah.
Mr. Mansoor, winner of the prestigious Martin Ennals Prize for human rights defenders in 2015, has repeatedly drawn the ire of the United Arab Emirates authorities, calling for a free press and democratic freedoms in this autocratic federation of seven sheikhs. He was targeted by Israeli spyware on his iPhone in 2016, likely deployed by the Emirati government before his arrest in 2017 and his sentencing to 10 years in prison for his activism.
Mr. Abdel-Fattah, who rose to prominence during the 2011 Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings, became the focus of protesters at last year’s COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, because he had stopped eating and drinking water to protest his detention. He spent most of the last decade in prison for his criticism of Egypt’s leaders.
Since 2013, the government of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has cracked down on dissidents and critics, imprisoning thousands, virtually banning protests and monitoring social media. El-Sissi did not release Mr Abdel-Fattah, despite being granted British citizenship during his imprisonment and despite interventions on his behalf from world leaders including US President Joe Biden.
Protesters also held up the image of Mohamed al-Siddiq, another Emirati arrested in the crackdown. Emiratis, in white dishdashas, a type of tunic, walked or passed by the demonstration in carts, watching with curiosity. The protests were scheduled to take place days earlier, but negotiations with UN officials dragged on – likely due to the sensitivity of even mentioning the names of detainees in the country.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, protesters briefly staged a “sit-in” at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ kiosk over a leaked letter calling on the organization’s member states to reject any attempt to include a gradual reduction of fossil fuels in any summit text.
Organizers canceled a subsequent food security event hosted by the Heschel Center for Sustainable Development, an Israeli organization, after pro-Palestinian activists wearing keffiyehs, a traditional headdress, wanted to attend. The war between Israel and Hamas has cast a shadow over ongoing climate negotiations, with pro-Palestinian protests and comments from world leaders.