The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has provided funding for politically motivated killings in Yemen.
After the UAE engaged American mercenaries in 2015, the training they received was utilized to train locals, which led to an increase in targeted assassinations. The results coincide with the Yemeni conflict’s resurgence in the worldwide media following attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The UAE government has refuted the accusations made in our research, claiming the claims were “false and without merit” and that it has killed people with no connection to terrorism.
Allegations And Evidence of UAE Humiliations
Saudi Arabia has been under fire for its unrepentantly autocratic policies, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and its involvement in war crimes in Yemen. Though it presents a more progressive image to the world, its close partner, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), often commits heinous crimes and receives significantly less censure than its Gulf neighbor. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a relatively new but rapidly growing power in the area, is frequently depicted as a glitzy, sophisticated tourist destination where wealthy foreigners come to pursue luxurious lifestyles. Beneath this pleasant façade lies a severely authoritarian administration that violates human rights both internationally and locally.
People tend to underestimate the UAE’s capacity for human rights violations in comparison to Saudi Arabia, a country often perceived as restrictive and linked to the death of Saudi national and Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. In response to Khashoggi’s killing, Western governments including those of the United States, France, and Britain have requested a Saudi statement. The UAE has not only covered up Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, but it has also engaged in other, less publicized wrongdoing. British PhD student Matthew Hedges, 31, was taken by Emirati security on May 5 as he was exiting the Dubai airport. Since then, he has been kept in solitary detention under circumstances described as “inhumane.”
Motivations and Objectives
In an effort to strike back, the US and the UK backed a coalition of primarily Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia in 2015, with the UAE serving as a crucial ally. The alliance launched its invasion of Yemen with the intention of combating terrorism and restoring the exiled Yemeni government. Al-Qaeda had been present in the south for a while and was now expanding, so the UAE was assigned responsibility for security there and turned into the US’s main ally in the fight against terrorism in the area.
Another blow to academic freedom came in March when well-known Emirati lecturer Nasser bin Ghaith, who had been kidnapped by security in 2015, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for peacefully criticizing the authorities. Because the demands of executive authorities and state security personnel frequently influence UAE courts, corruption is rampant throughout the legal system, contributing to an authoritarian government devoid of true rule of law. The case of the affluent Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the governing family of the United Arab Emirates, is a monument to this, and may be the most serious transgression on record.
Impact on Yemen’s Stability
Any killing of people without following the proper legal procedures would be considered extrajudicial under international law. Members of Islah, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Yemeni affiliate, made up the bulk of those killed. This well-known global Sunni Islamist movement has never been labeled as a terrorist organization by the US, but it is outlawed in a number of Arab nations, including the UAE, where the royal family views its political activism and support for elections as a challenge to their authority.
According to Huda al-Sarari, a human rights lawyer from Yemen, the most recent political killing in Yemen took place just last month when an imam was slain in Lahj using the same technique. Because the assassins were Yemenis, it was more difficult to link the deaths to the United Arab Emirates. Investigating human rights violations carried out by these forces, which are supported by the UAE, locally is attorney Huda al-Sarari. She would regularly receive death threats because of her profession. However, Mohsen, her 18-year-old son, ended up paying the ultimate price.
The force would only accept commands from the UAE and operated independently of the Yemeni government in the southern part of the country. The warriors received training outside of active front lines combat. The elite Counter Terrorism force was one such force that had assassination training. Because of the disarray, militants from the opposing Islamic State group (IS) and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have gained control of territory.