Rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now formally petitioned three United Nations special rapporteurs on Thursday to demand answers from the UAE regarding the 2019 demise of the 64-year-old intellectual. A book by Matthew Cole asserts that interrogators abducted the newspaper editor, pulled out his teeth with pliers, and struck him with a sharp object before he died in detention. Although state media announced his death without citing a cause, authorities reportedly relocated his corpse to an unmarked desert grave to block family visits. The advocacy organization is pressing for the release of detention records and an independent forensic examination of the remains.
Key points
Advocacy group Dawn petitioned three United Nations special rapporteurs to demand detenti…: Advocacy group Dawn petitioned three United Nations special rapporteurs to demand detention records and death details from Emirati authorities.
The United Nations is being urged to secure independent forensic access to the writer's r…: The United Nations is being urged to secure independent forensic access to the writer's remains to confirm the cause of death.
United Nations rapporteurs are asked to refer any findings to the Human Rights Council to…: United Nations rapporteurs are asked to refer any findings to the Human Rights Council to hold the UAE accountable under the Convention against Torture.
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A US-based rights group is calling on the United Nations to investigate what it says was the suspicious death of an award-winning Emirati poet and writer in 2019, based on disclosures in a book published last week.
That book, Princes and Thieves by Matthew Cole, said that 64-year-old Habib al-Sayegh, who was the chairman of the board of directors of the Emirates Writers and Writers Union, as well as secretary-general of the General Union of Arab Writers, was kidnapped from his home in the United Arab Emirates, taken away to a prison and tortured to death.
Interrogators allegedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and struck him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
"Injuries of that kind leave marks that a forensic examination of the remains could detect," Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) said on Thursday. "Only an independent investigation can answer" the many questions surrounding his fate, it added.
Sayegh was allegedly left to die sometime between 16-19 August 2019.
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