Labor Reforms in Qatar & UAE Require More than Rhetoric

The international community has devoted an unprecedented level of attention to migrant labor abuses in Qatar since its successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. NGOs and governments alike have called on the Qatari government to increase protections for migrant workers amidst a slew of abuses. Qatar has not been alone in facing international[…]

UAE Activist Receives International Human Rights Award

On 6 October 2015, a jury of ten leading human rights NGOs awarded Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. The jury commended Mansoor’s continued efforts to raise awareness of common human rights abuses in the UAE, such as the arbitrary detention and torture of activists. The award celebrates human[…]

At UN, ADHRB, BIRD, & ECDHR Raise Use of Extraterritorial Censorship in GCC States

Geneva, Switzerland — 28 September 2015 — On behalf of Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB), the European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR), and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), ECDHR advocacy associate Isabel Cerda Marcos delivered an oral intervention on the extraterritorial censorship of activists and human rights defenders in the Gulf[…]

One Month On: Where is Dr. Nasser bin Ghaith?

Today marks one month since the arrest and disappearance of prominent Emirati academic Dr. Nasser bin Ghaith. On 18 August 2015, UAE security forces detained Dr. bin Ghaith allegedly in relation to his tweets about Egypt. Nothing has been heard from him since his arrest, and his current whereabouts remain unknown. ADHRB and a number[…]

Letter Urges Secretary Kerry to Press UAE to Stop Persecuting Human Rights Defenders

On the occasion of Secretary Kerry’s meeting with UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) and Human Rights First (HRF) sent a letter to the Secretary asking him to raise the cases of several prominent human rights defenders facing persecution in the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Nasser[…]