UAE Interview: The Latest Crackdown on Human Rights Activists

Professor Nasser bin Ghaith, prosecuted in 2011Since 16 July, at least 10 activists have been arrested and deports in the United Arab Emirates, allegedly for planning to undermine the country's national security. According to the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, most were seized from homes or businesses after the State prosecutor claimed on 15 July that a plot had been discovered.

The latest arrests follow a wave earlier in the year and the prosecution of five prominent dissidents --- Ahmed Mansoor, an engineer and blogger; Nasser bin Ghaith, an economist and university lecturer at Sorbonne Abu Dhabi; and online activists Fahad Salim Dalk, Ahmed Abdul-Khaleq, and Hassan Ali al-Khamis --- in 2011.

EA WorldView attempted to contact several Emirati activists and commentators. None were willing to speak on the record but one activist agreed to be interviewed under a pseudonym.

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Josh Shahryar: Which emirates are the arrests concentrated in?

Abu Israar: The latest arrests were in Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Sharjah and Dubai. These arrests are done on a federal level and local Emirates have no hand in it. It's all done by the state security based in Abu Dhabi.

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Syria, Bahrain, Egypt (& Beyond) LiveBlog: Back to Square One?

Saturday's tear gas attack by security forces on protesters after a funeral in A'ali in Bahrain

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2024 GMT: Yemen's Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has named opposition leader Mohammed Basindwa as interim Prime Minister, according to State media.

Basindwa, Foreign Minister from 1993 to 1994, will form a new government under the deal signed in Saudi Arabia last Wednesday by President Saleh, who returned to Yemen last night.

On Saturday, Hadi called Presidential elections for 21 February.

2019 GMT: Claimed footage of a Saudi armoured vehicle trying to run over protesters in Qatif in Eastern Province --- demonstrations by the Shi'a population escalated this week, as four people were killed by security forces:

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Launch of an Opposition?

A woman with a Bahrain flag and then other protesters defy security forces, who respond by firing tear gas

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2040 GMT: A special video from Syria today, with tens of thousands of people turning out for a protest rally in Jebel el Zawiya in the northwest:

1720 GMT: Activists have raised today's death toll at the hands of Syrian security forces to 11 --- nine in Homs, one in Hama, and one in Idlib Province.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Where It Is Not Over

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2020 GMT: The lawyer for five political activists accused of insulting the leaders of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has said that his clients spent years serving their nation and that their alleged "crimes" are rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

The five men, arrested in April for urging public protests and disrupting public order, have been on trial since June, with a verdict expected on 17 November.

"The defendants are among the experts who served this country," said attorney Mohammed al-Roken. "There is no legislation that forbids peaceful gatherings. On the contrary, there's an article in the constitution that guarantees the right of citizens to hold public gatherings."

The defendants include economist Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France's Sorbonne University. He published an article criticising attempts to avoid political reform by buying off citizens with generous government spending programmes.

Another defendant, Ahmed Mansoor, is a communications engineer and poet whose works were published by Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. He is accused of running a website that provided a platform for the rest of the defendants to express anti-regime views.

1950 GMT: Braving gunfire that injured several people, protesters in Hodeidah in Yemen continue a march:

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Darkness in Homs

0915 GMT: A woman mourns over last night's deaths of at least 24 people in clashes around a Coptic Christian march in the Egyptian capital Cairo:

0905 GMT: In the United Arab Emirates, the families of five activists who are due back in court on charges of insulting senior officials have made a joint plea for their release.

The five activists --- Ahmed Mansoor, an engineer and blogger; Nasser bin Ghaith, an economist, university lecturer at Sorbonne Abu Dhabi and advocate for political reform; and online activists Fahad Salim Dalk, Ahmed Abdul-Khaleq, and Hassan Ali al-Khamis --- were arrested in April. Some of the defendant had signed a petition in March calling for political reforms, including direct elections and broadening the powers of the UAE legislature, the Federal National Council.

Mansoor faces additional charges of inciting others to break the law, calling for an election boycott, and calling for demonstrations. In March, e publicly supported a petition signed by more than 130 people advocating universal, direct elections for the FNC and legislative powers for the council.

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Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Noticing the Political Prisoners

Tonight's demonstration in Tal Refaat in Aleppo Provice in Syria, expressing support for the opposition's National Unity Council

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Sunday's Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Trying to Stem the Protests

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1947 GMT: An activist, claiming he was speaking from hiding, has said that Syrian troops have detained more than 3,000 people in the past three days in house-to-house sweeps in Rastan,.

The Syrian military reportedly occupied the town of 70,000 in Homs Province after a five-day assault last week. The activist said the detainees were being held at a cement factory, schools, and the Sports Club, a massive four-storey compound.

Syria's state-media said troops moved into Rastan to hunt down "armed terrorists".

Meanwhile, a funeral procession was held for the 21-year-old son of Syria's top Sunni Muslim cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun.

Hassoun's son was killed on Sunday in an ambush in northern Syria. The cleric, considered a close supporter of the Assad regime, told hundreds of people attending the funeral at a mosque in Aleppo that dissenters working against Syria from abroad: "Come and say whatever you want here and if anyone rejects [you], I will be with you in the opposition.You want freedom, you want justice then come here and build it with us in Syria."

Hassoun blamed fatwas or religious edicts by unnamed clerics, living abroad, for the death of his son.

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Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Trying to Stem the Protests

A police jeep hits a man in Salmabad in Bahraini and keeps speeding away, the man clinging to the hood

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1930 GMT: Five opposition political societies have announced a "human chain" in solidarity with detained medical staff and other political prisoners. The demonstration will begin at 4:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

1555 GMT: Medical workers have said that people injured in fighting in Libya's besieged city of Sirte are dying on the operating table because fuel for the hospital generator has run out.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Competition of Rallies

Claimed video of Syrian troops joining demonstrators in Al-Bukamal on Saturday (see 0440 GMT)

1929 GMT: Activists are reporting that security forces have used live gunfire against protesters in Daraa, Barza (southwest of Jisr al-Shughour), and in the LCCS is reporting that armed cars, driven by secret police (Shabiha) have opened fire in Homs:

"Cars belonging to armed shabiha roam the besieged neighborhoods and open arbitrary gunfire especially in Bayada & Khaldieh districts, gunfire from checkpoint present at Zenoubia School in Khaldieh"

1922 GMT: An activist has posted these graphic pictures, claiming to show casualties in Sana'a today.

1913 GMT: An in Sana'a, violence has broken out. There are reports of deaths, including a family of five. According to Reuters:

Fighting between government forces and opposition supporters erupted in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Monday, killing six people, opposition sources said. The fighting was the first to break out in Sanaa since President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to Saudi Arabia for treatment after sustaining severe burn wounds when an attempt to assassinate him was made in June....

One clash began when demonstrators seeking to increase pressure on Saleh to quit marched outside a square where they have been camped for months, said the sources, who declined to be identified.

'Hundreds of youths marched out of the sit-in area, but were confronted by security forces and gunmen in civilian clothes who fired on them. They killed one protester and wounded eight others,' said one source.

In northern Sanaa, a family of five was killed by shelling during clashes between Republican Guard forces and pro-opposition tribesmen, opposition and tribal sources said.

1905 GMT: We've often spoken of the 3 fronts in Yemen, protesters v. Saleh, tribes v. Saleh, and the Yemeni government v. radical muslim insurgents, including members of Al Qaeda. As if the situation there could get any more complicated...

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Syria, Libya, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: 1st-Hand Accounts

2030 GMT: Gathering in the coastal town of Latakia in Syria tonight:

1900 GMT: Claimed footage of a demonstration in Idlib Province in Syria today, calling for the downfall of the Assad regime:

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Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Defiances

1915 GMT: More confusion over the situation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak....

Egyptian State TV is reporting that Mubarak suffered a heart attack during questioning over corruption charges. However, the prosecutor's office has denied that Mubarak was interviewed today.

Mubarak was hospitalized at Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital, state media reported.

1855 GMT: Bahraini officials are claiming that three shotguns and Molotov cocktails were found in a mosque in Malikiya today.

1850 GMT: Claimed footage of an anti-regime protest in Syria today:

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