Salim Hamdoon Al-Shahhi is a prominent Emirati human rights defender and former prisoner of conscience who has been subjected to arbitrary detention and judicial harassment by the UAE authorities. He was one of the 43 individuals sentenced to life imprisonment by the Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal on 10 July 2024, as part of the so-called “UAE 84” group. The new convictions were widely condemned by human rights organisations as a violation of the principle of non-retroactivity in criminal law and an attempt to prolong the detention of individuals who had completed their sentences. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has previously found some of these detentions to be arbitrary, and UN experts have expressed concern about the use of counter-terrorism legislation to stifle civil society and civic space in the UAE.