News - Middle East - UAE: Dozens of activists, human rights defenders, judges, lawyers and other people of the Emirates continue to pay the price of the crime of enforced disappearance imposed on them by the UAE security forces, which led them to prisons and then to unfair trials that lacked all fair trial standards.

The International Center for Justice and Human Rights confirmed that the crime of enforced disappearance that activists were subjected to in the UAE continues to go unpunished, as no serious investigations have been opened and those responsible for it and for all the violations that resulted from it have not been held accountable.

The center explained that the UAE Code of Criminal Procedure in Article 47 stipulates that detainees must be referred to the Public Prosecution within two days, However, the 2003 UAE State Security Apparatus Law grants state security officers broad powers to detain people for long periods of time without any judicial scrutiny.

The UAE government is still stagnant in the matter of signing the Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, contrary to what it pledged during the periodic review before the Human Rights Council of 2013.

It also did not join the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2002, and it still has reservations about the complaints clause in the Convention against Torture, which deprives many victims of opportunities to complain and restore rights.

The UAE authorities declared that they do not recognize the competence of the Committee against Torture, and that they are not interested in a settlement through arbitration between it and other countries with regard to the interpretation or implementation of this Convention.

In addition, the UAE has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.