The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) welcomes the news of the release of poet Abdulrahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi by a presidential pardon in the United Arab of Emirates (UAE).

Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian national, was extradited from Lebanon to UAE on 08 January 2025. The extradition was conducted on the basis of an agreement by the General Secretariat of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal’s Cybercrime Circuit had ruled on 27 August 2026 to convict him of the crimes attributed to him, sentencing him to ten years imprisonment and fining him AED 200,000.  He was convicted on charges related to posting online statements that were considered stirring and upsetting to national security.

GCHR has actively called for the release of Al-Qaradawi, along with other human rights organisations. GCHR welcomes the news of his release and calls for the release of other UAE nationals who remain in prison for a long time solely due to their peaceful human rights activities, in addition to expressing their opinions publicly on the need for reform in UAE. 

We urge the UAE government to release all members of the UAE 94 and UAE 84 groups. The UAE 84 involved 67 people who were sentenced to heavy sentences in prison after they faced trumped-up terrorism related charges.

Among them is prominent human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, a member of GCHR’s Advisory Board, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in this case, in addition to a previous ten-year sentence handed down in 2018 following his arrest in 2017. It also includes prominent academic and human rights defender Nasser Bin Ghaith, who received a 15-year sentence in the UAE84 case. Bin Ghaith was arrested in 2015, and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2017 in a previous case. Their trials illustrated a complete disregard for minimum international standards of fairness and due process.

Similarly, the UAE 94 trial involved a number of prominent activists and academics who were sentenced in a mass trial to prison terms between seven and 15 years in 2013. They included Dr. Mohammed Al-Roken, Dr. Mohammed Al-Mansoori, and Sheikh Mohammed Abdulrazzaq Al-Siddiq, among others. They were sentenced on the charge of establishing an organisation that allegedly aimed to overthrow the government, which they denied.

For more information about the two groups, click here.

Recommendation

GCHR urges the authorities in the UAE to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release all members of UAE 84 and UAE 94 groups from detention;
2. Guarantee their physical and psychological integrity and security while they remain in detention; and
3. Guarantee in all circumstances that on-line activists and all human rights defenders in the UAE are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.