Human Rights Watch urges UAE to release Jordanian journalist

AMMAN — Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday urged UAE authorities to free a Jordanian journalist who has been in detention “without trial or access to a lawyer” for over a year.

Tayseer Al Najjar “was apparently detained over three Facebook posts in which he criticised Egypt, Israel and Gulf countries”, the rights group said in a statement.

On December 3, 2015, UAE authorities at Abu Dhabi airport prevented Najjar from boarding a flight to Jordan to visit his wife and children, the statement said, quoting Najjar’s wife, Majida Hourani.

She said UAE authorities have repeatedly questioned him since his arrest and, on October 17 this year, a prosecutor told him that he is to be put on trial. 

Although he has not been informed of the charges, it appears they will be related to violations of the UAE’s cyber crime law, HRW said.

The global rights group called Najjar’s detention and potential prosecution for the exercise of free speech “a violation of fundamental human rights” and urged his immediate release.

“The UAE should release Tayseer Al Najjar immediately, and Jordanian authorities should be making public calls to that end and to have his rights respected,” the statement quoted Joe Stork, the deputy director of Middle East at HRW, as saying.

Najjar’s wife said he had been a journalist for more than 15 years, and had been working in the UAE since April 2015, when he became a culture reporter for the UAE-based newspaper Dar.

Article 29 of the UAE’s 2012 cyber crime law provides for prison sentences of between 3 and 15 years for publishing information online with the “intent to make sarcasm or damage the reputation, prestige or stature of the state or any of its institutions”, according to the watchdog.