UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations has chided the United Arab Emirates over its human rights records, citing vague “anti-terror” crimes that attract the death penalty, the tightening of censorship and the detention of human rights activists.

In a report released on Thursday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) raised concerns over the UAE’s 2014 counterterrorism law under which anyone over the age of 16 found to “undermine national unity or social peace” can be sentenced to death.

The report is among a plethora of documents submitted before meetings later this month of the UN’s Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in which the records of the UAE and Israel, among others, are to be scrutinised, a news report here said.

The procedure, known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), is a tool that the UNHRC uses to assess the records of all 193 member-states every four years.

In the report, the OHCHR highlighted “growing concerns” over a crackdown on peaceful activists, including activists Osama al-Najjar, who was sentenced to three years in prison over his tweets, and Ahmed Mansoor, who has been held since March 2017 over charges of using social media to “publish false information that harms national unity”.

Mansoor’s imprisonment, the report said, “is in contrast with the UAE’s international human rights obligations and the Emirati constitution”.

However, the UN body also recognised positive steps that the UAE has taken to prevent the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

The report says that the UAE has “witnessed considerable developments in terms of social and economic rights”, which include offering better protection for migrants workers and combating trafficking.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2018