Amnesty International launched a new petition calling on the UAE Ambassador to London to help secure the immediate release of the Emirati human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor.

Ahmed Mansoor is a loving husband and father, a blogger and a poet. He is currently in solitary confinement for speaking out about human rights in the UAE. Demand his release, the petition reads.

As a prominent human rights defender, Ahmed was the last remaining voice speaking out about the UAE’s poor human rights record from within the country – until six years ago, when he was arrested for doing just that. He has been locked in an isolation cell ever since.

In his cell, Ahmed has no bed, mattress or pillow: he sleeps on the hard floor. He has no access to books, TV, radio, pens or paper. He is allowed outside just three times a week, and only when there are no other prisoners in the yard.

Ahmed is serving a 10-year prison sentence for ‘insulting the UAE and its symbols’. In other words, his ‘crime’ was voicing his opinions and stating the facts. He regularly spoke out about the detention, torture and unfair trials faced by people with dissenting voices in the UAE.

The degrading treatment Ahmed is facing in prison is seriously impacting on his physical health. He has twice resorted to hunger strikes in protest of the inhuman conditions he is being forced to live in – losing dangerous amounts of weight and risking his life in the process.