UAE pardons 57 Bangladeshis jailed over anti-Hasina protests 202
The UAE President has pardoned 57 Bangladeshi citizens imprisoned for demonstrating against their government in the Gulf nation.
The move by President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, announced on Tuesday, invalidates the sentences given to them, according to state news agency WAM.
They will be released and deported, according to the report.
Bangladesh’s news agency Sangbad Sangstha reported the detainees are all expected to be returned home soon citing a presidential adviser.
The Bangladeshi expatriates were accused of participating in protests in the UAE that mirrored widespread demonstrations against the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and her government in Bangladesh.
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In July, a federal court in the UAE, where unauthorized protests are prohibited, quickly sentenced them for “organizing and inciting riots.”
The prosecution contended that they had “gathered in public with the purpose of inciting riots and disrupting their home government’s operations.
Three received life sentences, 53 got terms of a decade in prison. One Bangladeshi, who state media reported entered the UAE illegally and “joined in the riot,” received 11 years.
Human Rights Watch had criticized their incarceration, describing it as “arbitrary,” and denounced the lengthy prison terms saying they were “detailed only for taking part in peaceful demonstrations.”
Leader Muhammad Yunus
Sheikh Mohamed signed the prisoner release order less than a week after his phone call with Bangladesh’s new caretaker leader Muhammad Yunus, who came into office after Sheikh Hasina was forced out by the protests last month.
The turmoil in Bangladesh began in June with student-led protests demanding changes to civil service job quotas and grew into mass protests calling for the resignation of Hasina, who had ruled since 2009.
Bangladeshis are the third-largest group of expats in the UAE after Pakistanis and Indians, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The UAE, with a population of about 10 million, is for the most part made up of foreign residents. Countless Bangladeshis labor in the UAE in lowly waged, blue-collar jobs to send home remittances.
It has no tolerance whatsoever for dissent, as the UAE bans criticism of its leaders and prohibits speech that incites or aggravates social unrest. The freedom of expression is highly curtailed, and its penal code criminalizes acts that offend foreign nations or threaten diplomatic relations.
