UAE: Prison Sentence for Activists an Attack on Free Expression

A guilty verdict against five activists by the United Arab Emirates’ Federal Supreme Court on November 27, 2011, is an attack on freedom of expression and the result of an unfair trial. The panel of four foreign judges delivered the verdict in a ten-minute oral statement in court, sentencing Ahmed Mansoor, a prominent UAE reformer, to three years imprisonment and the rest to two years each for publicly insulting UAE authorities. The detainees have no right of appeal in the case.