• Abu Dhabi branded a ‘black hole’ for basic human rights • City ‘being used to launder reputation’ of repressive regime • Torture ‘a systematic practice’ in Abu Dhabi, says HRW English football has been warned it has allowed one of its major clubs to be exploited as a “branding vehicle” by an international regime accused of human rights abuses after a trial in Abu Dhabi, a country ruled by Manchester City’s owner and his brothers, was widely denounced as repressive, involving torture, and “fundamentally unfair”. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have vehemently protested against the mass arrest of 94 people , their alleged torture while in Abu Dhabi jails, a “fundamentally unfair” trial, and long prison sentences with no right of appeal handed down earlier this month to the 69 people convicted. Amnesty said the treatment of the 94 in the United Arab Emirates, where Sheikh Mansour al-Nahyan’s family, rulers of the richest emirate, Abu Dhabi, are dominant, “shows the authorities’ determination to crush any form of dissent”
• Abu Dhabi branded a ‘black hole’ for basic human rights
• City ‘being used to launder reputation’ of repressive regime
• Torture ‘a systematic practice’ in Abu Dhabi, says HRW
English football has been warned it has allowed one of its major clubs to be exploited as a “branding vehicle” by an international regime accused of human rights abuses after a trial in Abu Dhabi, a country ruled by Manchester City’s owner and his brothers, was widely denounced as repressive, involving torture, and “fundamentally unfair”.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have vehemently protested against the mass arrest of 94 people, their alleged torture while in Abu Dhabi jails, a “fundamentally unfair” trial, and long prison sentences with no right of appeal handed down earlier this month to the 69 people convicted. Amnesty said the treatment of the 94 in the United Arab Emirates, where Sheikh Mansour al-Nahyan’s family, rulers of the richest emirate, Abu Dhabi, are dominant, “shows the authorities’ determination to crush any form of dissent”.
The 94 were tried on charges of plotting to overthrow the UAE government, which remains adamant this was proven against the 69 convicted. The regime, whose army and security services are headed by Sheikh Mansour’s brother, Sheikh Mohammed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, maintains the 69 were operating as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, and seeking to impose a conservative Islamist state, including by military means. The defendants, who include lawyers, teachers and academics, say this was a crackdown by an increasingly authoritarian state, after they voiced valid criticisms of the regime, calling for more democracy and freedom of speech. Only a minority of the UAE population has any kind of vote, the ruling families have been in charge for centuries, and in 2013 it remains a crime to criticise the rulers, belong to a trade union or form any organisation not licensed by the regime.
Amnesty and HRW have stated that they believe torture is “a systematic practice” in Abu Dhabi and UAE state security jails, and that complaints that these men were tortured, including to extract confessions, have not been investigated. Amnesty said the trial showed “a deeply flawed judicial system” at odds with the “global image the UAE likes to project of itself as an efficient, forward-thinking country, which in many ways it is”.
HRW made specific reference to Manchester City, arguing that ownership of the Premier League club is enabling Abu Dhabi to “construct a public relations image of a progressive, dynamic Gulf state, which deflects attention from what is really going on in the country”.
Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008, and has since spent around £1bn of the fortune he wields as a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, principally to buy and pay the multimillion-pound wages of footballers to make City successful. Mansour is among the most powerful group in Abu Dhabi with the crown prince Sheikh Mohammed and their other “full” brothers by Sheikha Fatima, one of the six wives married to the former ruler, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan. Sheikh Khalifa, Zayed’s oldest son, one of Mansour’s half-brothers by a different wife, is the UAE president, said to be ailing in health. Mansour is the Abu Dhabi deputy prime minister, responsible for the country’s judges, and sits on the board of key investment funds.
Manchester City is run by Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman, a senior Abu Dhabi government and business figure, who works principally for Sheikh Mohammed. Mubarak is the chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority, a strategic government body responsible for advising on Abu Dhabi’s international image. He was deputed from his duties for Sheikh Mohammed to run City shortly after Mansour bought the club, to shape a more dignified direction after the initial frenzy of media coverage which was all about money and considered detrimental by the Abu Dhabi establishment.
Mubarak has always emphasised that City is a private business acquisition by Sheikh Mansour, with Mubarak charged to make it profitable, worth more than the £1bn spent, in 10 years. The Premier League club, though, have unquestionably become the most prominent global projection of Abu Dhabi itself, sponsored by four state-owned companies: the airline Etihad, the telecommunications company Etisalat, the investment company Aabar and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. When David Silva, Sergio Agüero and Yaya Touré weave their patterns in the Etihad Stadium, the hoardings around the pitch beam “Visit Abu Dhabi, Travellers Welcome” to the 200 countries where Premier League football is viewed – a great global advert.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2009, Mubarak said of the running of City: “This is telling a lot to the world about how we are. It is showing the world … the true essence of … what Abu Dhabi is about. There is almost a personification of the values we hold as Abu Dhabi, with the values of the club and the values we would like to stick to.”
Nicholas McGeehan, UAE researcher for HRW, describes the country in the light of the recent trial as increasingly “a black hole” for many basic human rights: “In this situation, a Premier League club is being used as a branding vehicle to promote and effectively launder the reputation of a country perpetrating serial human rights abuses,” he said. “That should be of concern to football supporters as well as human rights organisations.”
This condemnation of the UAE for a crackdown on citizens criticising the ruling regime is relatively recent. An alliance of seven emirates made in 1971, the UAE’s native Emirati people have generally been considered content with their stable and wealthy way of life. Sheikh Zayed, who died in 2004, was widely revered as a visionary, planning Abu Dhabi’s super-fast development after the oil riches transformed the country from the 1960s, while retaining traditional Sunni Muslim values. Zayed distributed wealth to the wider population and, although democracy has always been outlawed, he famously talked of gradually introducing voting rights: “Moving towards a parliamentary, integrated and comprehensive system in a society liberated from fear.”
HRW’s previous concerns have centred on low pay and grim conditions for the people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere brought to the UAE to build its prestige buildings, and work in domestic service. In a series of reports, HRW has highlighted exploitative practices, including burdensome recruitment fees charged to workers before they arrive, low pay of around $8 a day in one of the world’s richest countries, the prevailing system of being tied to one employer, and the prohibition on forming a union or striking for better terms.
The government has repeatedly acknowledged the criticisms, and says: “Sweeping reforms aimed at improving working conditions and worker rights reflect the UAE’s commitment to treat all guest workers with dignity and respect.”
HRW argues that is not matched by the reality and points to continuing reports of construction workers being deported after going on strike over low pay and dreadful working conditions on projects in the UAE.
The Emirati population, which numbers around one million, are still considered by commentators to be largely content, particularly given the country’s stability in a Middle East in turmoil and civil war elsewhere. But internal critics began to find more of a voice two years ago, against a background of the Arab spring, conservative Muslim campaigns and democracy movements in other countries, allied to widespread use of the internet.
In March 2011, five Emiratis posted a petition addressed to Sheikh Khalifa, the UAE president. The petition expressed profound respect for Khalifa and the Federal Supreme Council, the law-making organ of state run by the seven emirates’ ruling families. Quoting Zayed’s vision of a parliamentary system for “a society liberated from fear,” the petition asked for greater democracy, by: “Electing all the members of the Federal Supreme Council by all citizens in the same manner that is approached in the democratic countries around the world.” The UAE authorities argue it was not the petition itself that led to those posting it being arrested but the continued criticism with which they followed it up.
One of the most persistent, Ahmed Mansoor, was kept in jail for eight months before being sentenced to three years in prison for criticising the regime. Immediately after his sentence Mansoor, along with the other petitioners, received a presidential pardon.
“I am a liberal secularist and do not belong to any religious group,” Mansoor told the Guardian. An engineer who studied at the University of Colorado and lived in the US for seven years, when Mansoor returned to his native UAE he found its