Human Rights Dubai – Details of a detention in UAE

source

Report from 2006

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Mohammed al-Roken is perhaps the most prominent human rights activist in Dubai. That distinction has cost him. He was arrested twice. The government forced him out of his job as a professor, canceled his public lectures and banned him from writing in newspapers. His passport was seized, barring him from traveling abroad.

Dr. Mohammed Al Roken was in the lobby of one of Dubai’s hotels on 27 July 2006 where he was with a German lady discussing the convening of an international conference on human rights. Suddenly they were surrounded by a group of security and intelligence men and they were both taken to the Dubai Police General Command – Security and Intelligence Department. Each of them was interrogated separately. The interrogation with Al Roken started with questions about his involvement in Islamic work and his connections with international legal and media organizations.

The questioning was accompanied by insults and degradation. When he started to hold back and remind them of his rights pointing out that he knows no reason for such a surprising and illegal arrest, security men started making fun of him and of the human rights he was talking about.

They threatened him that if he does not cooperate and provide information and stop his activities they will frame him by accusing him of an immoral act. They played a tape of a phone call where Dr. Al Roken was talking to a woman and told him that they were able of dubbing the tape in such a way to use it as evidence to damage his reputation and “expose him before the public”. At the same time the interrogators continued with their humiliating treatment of him. Extremely tired, Dr. Al Roken was forced to give some information about his activities in the fields of human rights and
reform and his affiliations inside the country and outside it without giving too many details.

Late at night, the security men brought him some food. After eating he felt so tired and fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning he felt that his clothes were wet. As he was checking his clothes, the security men took all his clothes off and gave him other clothes to wear. They told him that they will keep the clothes for evidence against him in the crime they are going to invent against him. He had feelings of depression and fear of damaged reputation. After heaps of insults, he was told to get ready as his family was coming to take him home. He was glad to hear that and got ready for going home.

He was taken to another room where a security officer was sitting behind a desk with a document in front of him. Dr. Al Roken was asked to sign the document, when he asked about the content of the document, he was told that it was a
statement admitting to having committed adultery with the German lady. He rejected this and insisted on his innocence, but he was threatened that he will be taken back to cells again where he will be subjected to extreme
psychological torture and will not see his family. At the time Dr. Al Roken had lost his balance and ability to argue, he signed the document telling the interrogator that he does not admit to anything in the statement and that he
signed it under duress. His priority was to get away from pressure and torture, he was asked not to tell anyone of what has happened to him.

Two interrogators took turns in interrogating Dr. Al Roken, one of them dealt the rough treatment and threats and the other dealt the more human treatment and urged Dr. Al Roken to cooperate and he would be
released in a few hours.

After signing the document, Dr. Al Roken was released and arrived home tired and in a very sorry state. He told his family what has happened to him.

Amongst the things he told his family is that the security men were displeased with the relations Dr. Al Roken has with
influential figures in UAE such as Sheikh Sultan Bin Kayed al-Qasemi and others.

He added that the security authorities were upset with his writings, interviews and participation in human rights activities worldwide and asked him to stop all these activities.

Immediately after his release, Dr. Al Roken traveled with his family abroad. On his return security men started contacting him and he refused meeting them for a while then he accepted a meeting with one of them at
the Bustan hotel in Dubai.
The agent asked him for information about the Islamic movement that he is affiliated with. Dr. Al Roken refused to cooperate asking the agent how did he expect him to cooperate while his department had already started, as threatened, damaging his reputation by spreading rumors that he has committed adultery which was not true. The agent denied that his department was spreading such rumors, but Dr. Al Roken told him that his brother and friends told him that such a rumor was being spread and the meeting ended without any results after two hours.

He was summoned again [to the interrogation centre] on Wednesday morning 23/8/2006, he tried not to attend but he was threatened with being arrested. He told his family and brothers before going to the centre where he had to wait till 5:00 pm when they brought him food and drink but he refused to eat or drink to avoid a repeat of what has happened to him the first time.

After that he was blindfolded and a tough interrogator, who was specialized in psychological torture, came into the room and started heaping insults on Dr. Al Roken describing him as an animal, someone without heart or humanity and ill-mannered and tried to get information out of him about the his various activities and names of people he meets in the country and abroad. He was threatened that if he does not admit they will bring members of his family and make them watch a video of him in a sexual act. Dr. Al Roken replied that they have already started to spread damaging rumors about him and that he was sure of his innocence and their threats do not frighten him the least.

The interrogation and psychological torture lasted until 7:10 pm, when he was allowed to pray. After the prayers, another interrogator interviewed Dr. Al Roken without the blindfolds this time. The interrogator started calming him down and apologizing for the rough treatment. Dr. Al Roken was left to spend the night in a cell.

On Thursday morning, the same rough interrogator came to see Dr. Al Roken and repeated the same insults and degrading treatment, but Dr. Al Roken did not cooperate, the session lasted for about three hours. He was then left till Friday afternoon when he was asked to phone his family and ask them to come and bring along his passport to take him home. Dr. Al Roken left his prison cell home extremely tired and in a state of shock as a resultof the psychological torture he was subjected .

The Security Department in Dubai applied for the prosecution of Dr. Al Roken on the accusation of committing adultery with the German lady. The Prosecution Services will decide on Sunday 10 September 2006 whether to go
ahead with the prosecution or not. The Security Department in Dubai threatened that the Prosecution
Services, the forensic laboratories and the Judiciary were all under their influence and that even if Dr. Al Roken was found to be innocent they would have achieved the goal of damaging his reputation.

According to lawyer and independent human rights activist Muhammad al-Roken, the government returned his passport in May 2007 but in 2008 the Ministry of Justice threatened to cancel his law license. Al-Roken received a three-month suspended sentence after being charged with sex out of wedlock in a politically motivated case in 2007.

Read also from The Washinghton Post A Bearth of Politics in Booming Dubai