WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United Arab Emirates must urgently release three women who campaigned for the release of a political prisoner and have been held in police custody without access to the outside world, Amnesty International said in a statement.
“Three women who have been detained incommunicado for nearly two weeks in a chilling display of repression by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment and must be urgently released,” the statement, issued on Friday, said.
The three women — Asma Khalifa al-Suwaidi, Mariam Khalifa al-Suwaidi and Alyaziyah Khalifa al-Suwaidi — were summoned to a police station in Abu Dhabi after campaigning online for the release of their brother Issa al-Suwaidi, whom Amnesty International considers a prisoner of conscience.
“Shortly after posting a tweet that said ‘I miss my brother’, Asma Khalifa al-Suwaidi and her two sisters were summoned by police and now have vanished as if into a black hole,” the statement said.
The women have not had contact with their family and are believed to have been denied access to a lawyer, according to the statement, which noted that dissidents are routinely subjected to arbitrary detention and torture in the UAE.
