As COP28 is being concluded in Dubai, the UAE authorities have conducted a mass trial of 87 prisoners on terrorism charges, including Mohamed Al-Roken, Salim Hamdoon al-Shahhi and Hadif Rashed al-Owais, whose sentences expired over a year ago and are held in poor conditions with no family contact. 

The Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center, headed by Emirati human rights defender Hamad al-Shamsi, affirmed the information from multiple individuals with direct knowledge of the trial.

Those on trial face charges of “establishing a terrorist organization, supporting and financing it,” the center said in a statement. 

The center “is highly troubled by the UAE’s apparent fabrication of new charges to extend the sentences of those already released, reflecting the Emirati authorities’ ongoing suppression of dissent and civil society.”

Among those charged in the case is Ahmed Mansoor, the recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015. Mansoor repeatedly drew the ire of authorities in the UAE by calling for a free press and democratic freedoms in the autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms.

Others among the 87 charged include the activist Nasser bin Ghaith, an academic held since August 2015 over his tweets. He was among dozens of people sentenced in the wake of a wide-ranging crackdown in the UAE following the 2011 Arab Spring protests.