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The United Arab Emirates is preparing to deport an Egyptian-American citizen detained in Dubai who called for protests during the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt, sparking fears about the treatment of civil society during next year’s Cop28 in the Emirates.
Sherif Osman, a former Egyptian army officer who has lived in the US for decades, was detained at a restaurant in Dubai, where he had travelled with his fiancee to see family.
The rights group Amnesty International said that the officials “didn’t present an arrest warrant or explain to him or his distraught family the reason for his arrest, and he was taken away in an unmarked car. A month later, Emirati officials told his lawyer that they had acted in response to a request from Egypt.”
On his YouTube channel, which has just over 35,000 subscribers, Osman discusses political affairs in Egypt. In early October, he began posting videos urging citizens in Egypt to protest on 11 November, joining other demands for protests that day to show discontent with the rising cost of living and crackdown on civil rights in Egypt.
Osman’s detention in the UAE, a fierce ally and longtime financial backer of the Egyptian state, has sent a ripple of fear through a vast community of Egyptian exiles, including many working for human rights organisations who are planning to attend Cop28 in Dubai. Many of these same activists said they were unable to attend Cop27 in Egypt because they feared arrest.
Emirati officials declined to clarify whether Osman would be extradited to Egypt or the US, but rights groups fear that should he be sent to Egypt he could be at risk of torture and abuse.
Authorities arrested hundreds of people in Egypt in the weeks leading up to 11 November to deter protests. Most were charged with “spreading false news”, or served terrorism charges. The arrests were followed by intensive surveillance of civil society at Cop27, as well as restrictions on protests.
“There are growing concerns that the UAE will repeat the restrictions on civic space and protests seen at Cop27,” said Amnesty International.
The Emirates’ political ties with the United States have provided little protection against the arrest of American citizens, particularly those like Osman who hold dual nationality. In 2016, a father and son who both held dual US-Libyan nationality were detained for more than a year after a raid on their home, and extensively tortured in prison including mock executions.
Earlier this year the US citizen Asim Ghafoor, who previously acted as the lawyer of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was detained in Dubai airport and sentenced to three years in prison on charges relating to alleged financial crimes in the United States before he was freed months later.
The US president, Joe Biden, has publicly thanked the Emirates for helping in the release of the detained American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was freed from a Russian penal colony and swapped for a notorious Russian arms dealer on the tarmac in an Emirati airfield.
Egyptian officials have not publicly said what motivated Osman’s detention. An Emirati official told the Guardian that Osman was detained on 6 November “at the request of the Arab Interior Ministers Council (AIMC), the Arab League body responsible for coordinating matters of law enforcement and national security”. The AIMC is a powerful body created in 1980, designed to aid cross-border investigations. The Emirati official declined to state publicly which member of the Arab League demanded Osman’s arrest.
Rights groups said Osman was taken to the Dubai public prosecutor on 8 November, where he was informed that he had been arrested at Egypt’s behest using Interpol’s red notice system, designed to flag the movement of suspects internationally, and where the prosecutor referred to Osman’s YouTube channel. A spokesperson for Interpol told the Guardian that no such red notice had been issued against Osman.
Amnesty International said Osman has not been permitted to meet with his lawyer and was prevented from signing a power of attorney document by the Emirati authorities. Washington DC-based rights group The Freedom Initiative said Osman was allowed to sign the document after a month in detention, but that Emirati officials denied a request for his freedom submitted by his lawyer in early December.
Osman’s fiancee, Saija Virta, told Amnesty International that “we have no documents at all from any Emirati authority. We don’t have any reason for why he’s being detained. We have been given no reason why he hasn’t been allowed to meet with a lawyer.”
The Emirati official said: “As in each detention case, the UAE strictly adheres to all internationally accepted standards including regular consular access and legal counsel. The UAE continues to work closely with AIMC’s relevant authorities to secure the requisite legal documentation required in preparing the extradition file.”
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