UAE’s military occupation in Bahrain to help suppress a popular revolt

UAE is ranked the world’s fifteenth biggest military spender
April 14, 2014 Press Release, Stockholm, Sweden

UAE is ranked to fifteenth place with $19 billion in the list of SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 2014.

Middle Eastern nations increased their military expenditure by billions of dollars last year, Saudi Arabia, the largest spender in the region, increased spending by 14 per cent to a total of $67.0 billion in 2013. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is ranked to fifteenth place with $19 billion. The comprehensive annual update of the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database is accessible from today at www.sipri.org.

According to the SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Military Expenditure Database, the gobal military expenditure was $1747 billion in 2013, a fall of 1.9 per cent in real terms since 2012, according to figures released today by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The database describes the global, regional and national trends in military expenditure that are revealed by the new data.

The fall in the global total comes from decreases in Western countries, led by the United States, and despite increases in all other regions. In fact, military spending in the rest of the world excluding the USA increased by 1.8 per cent.

The next three highest spenders—China, Russia and Saudi Arabia—all made substantial increases, with Saudi Arabia leapfrogging the United Kingdom, Japan and France to become the world’s fourth largest military spender. China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are among the 23 countries around the world that have more than doubled their military expenditure since 2004.

The fall in US spending in 2013, by 7.8 per cent, is the result of the end of the war in Iraq, the beginning of the drawdown from Afghanistan, and the effects of automatic budget cuts passed by the US Congress in 2011. Meanwhile, austerity policies continued to determine trends in Western and Central Europe and in other Western countries.

‘The increase in military spending in emerging and developing countries continues unabated,’ said Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure Programme. ‘While in some cases it is the natural result of economic growth or a response to genuine security needs, in other cases it represents a squandering of natural resource revenues, the dominance of autocratic regimes, or emerging regional arms races.’

Saudi Arabia and Iraq dominate increase in the Middle East

Military spending in the Middle East increased by 4.0 per cent in 2013, reaching an estimated $150 billion. Saudi Arabia’s spending increased by 14 per cent, to reach $67 billion, possibly due to tensions with Iran but also the desire to maintain strong and loyal security forces to insure against potential ‘Arab Spring’ type protests.

Maintaining regime survival in the face of internal opposition is also the likely motive for Bahrain’s 26 per cent increase. However, the largest regional increase was by Iraq (27 per cent), as it continued the rebuilding of its armed forces.

‘Military spending data for Iran, Qatar, Syria and the United Arab Emirates are not available for 2013, which means that the estimated regional total is highly uncertain. This reflects the general opacity of military spending in the region, and even where data is available it may not cover all military spending,’ said Dr Perlo-Freeman.

Resources fuelling arms acquisitions in Africa

Military spending in Africa increased by 8.3 per cent in 2013, reaching an estimated $44.9 billion. Over two-thirds of the African countries for which data is available increased military spending in 2013. Algeria became the first country in Africa with military spending over $10 billion, an increase of 8.8 per cent since 2012, and of 176 per cent since 2004. Meanwhile, Angola increased its spending by 36 per cent in 2013, to overtake South Africa as the largest military spender in sub-Saharan Africa, and the second highest on the continent. High oil revenues appear to be a factor driving both Algeria’s and Angola’s military spending increases.

Read full report: Military spending continues to fall in the West but rises everywhere else, says SIPRI
http://www.reparationlaw.com/news/military-spending-continues-to-fall-in-the-west-but-rises-everywhere-else-says-sipri/

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Photograph: UAE’s military occupation in the Kingdom of Bahrain to help suppress a popular revolt.
http://reparationlaw.com/caselaw/category/country/uae/abu-dhabi/

TABLE: Countries with highest military expenditure in 2013

1) USA: $640 billion
2) China: $188 billion
3) Russia: $87.8 billion
4) Saudi Arabia: $67 billion
5) France: $61.2 billion
6) UK: $57.9 billion
7) Germany: $48.8 billion
8) Japan: $48.6 billion
9) India: $47.4 billion
10) South Korea: $33.9 billion
11) Italy: $32.7 billion
12) Brazil: $31.5 billion
13) Australia: $24 billion
14) Turkey: $19.1 billion
15) UAE: $19 billion

(Principal Source: SIPRI)

Links to State-sponsored Terrorism

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is ranked to fifteenth place with $19 billion in the list of annual update of the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Terror is being practiced by the Regime of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, against its own people, foreign nationals and its neighboring countries. Some of the links to the UAE’s state-sponsored terrorism are as in the following:

UAE Funding for Coup in the Middle East

• 1) UAE, Egypt plotting coup in Libya, say revolutionaries
• 2) UAE Funding Former Dictator’s Son for Coup in Yemen
• 3) UAE Spending Billions of Dollars to Topple Tunisia’s Marzouki
• 4) UAE Behind Egypt’s Coup
• 5) Evil prospers when good men do nothing
• 5) What, man, defy the devil: Save mankind from dictators!

UN expert calls for probe of ‘torture’ in UAE prisons

UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, at UN headquarters in San Salvador on November 26, 2012 (AFP Photo/Jose Cabezas)

Abu Dhabi (AFP) – A UN expert on Wednesday urged an independent probe into allegations of torture in United Arab Emirates prisons, which she was not allowed to visit during a fact-finding mission.

Gabriela Knaul, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, also criticised “violations” and a “lack of transparency” in court proceedings in the Gulf country, where dozens of Islamists have been rounded up.

Knaul called for independence for the UAE judiciary, which she said “remains under the de facto control of the executive branch of government.”

The UAE foreign ministry welcomed her visit, pledging to “study the remarks and recommendations” she made.

But it complained that some of Knaul’s comments “were based on information that had no known sources and was consistent with a politically motivated campaign by a group seeking to distort the UAE’s reputation.”

In her preliminary report on a nine-day visit, Knaul urged the UAE to “establish an independent committee to investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention.”

She told a press conference she had received “credible information and evidence” that detainees are arrested without warrant, blindfolded, taken to unknown places and held incommunicado, sometimes for months.

She said she also had evidence of detainees being “tortured and/or subjected to ill-treatment” including by being put in “electric chairs.”

She said she was not allowed to visit prisons or meet with certain detainees, adding that “on one occasion, I was followed.”

The UAE has not seen any of the widespread protests that have swept other Arab states since 2011. However, authorities have cracked down hard on dissent and calls for democratic reform, drawing criticism from human rights groups.

The top UAE security court last month jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians convicted of forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell for terms ranging from three months to five years.

The 10 UAE citizens in the group were among 69 nationals jailed in July for up to 15 years on separate charges of plotting to overthrow the government.

Evidence sometimes ‘fabricated’

In her report, Knaul said supreme court rulings must be subject to appeal, criticising “an apparent lack of transparency during both the investigation phase and court proceedings.”

She spoke of claims that “evidence is sometimes manipulated and fabricated by the police or other security agencies and the prosecution.”

“The lack of transparency is compounded when the court hearings are not public,” she added.

Only selected relatives of the defendants, in addition to local journalists and representatives of human rights groups were allowed to attend the Islamists’ trial.

Knaul also accused the UAE of “disturbing” treatment of women “who dare to file a complaint for sexual assault.”

In July, a Norwegian woman was released following a pardon by the Dubai ruler. Although she had filed a rape report with police, the woman found herself tried and jailed for extramarital sex, perjury and consuming alcohol without a licence.

The UAE, which is home to millions of expatriates, must also “redouble efforts to allow access to justice, in particular to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and domestic workers,” she said.

It should provide “quality interpretation and translation for non-Arabic speakers at all stages of legal proceedings.”

In 2010, the appeal of 17 Indian expatriates sentenced to death after being convicted of killing a Pakistani was repeatedly delayed for lack of an interpreter, drawing strong criticism from Indian human rights groups.

The court later commuted the death sentences to two years in prison followed by deportation.

Photograph: The U.N. Special Rapporteur Gabriela Knaul

UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, at UN headquarters in San Salvador on November 26, 2012 (AFP Photo/Jose Cabezas)

‘Solidarity with UAE Lawyers’

[Written by Bret Nelson, Senior Research Assistant, Freedom in the World]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has gone to great lengths to market itself to the world as a cosmopolitan oasis and regional hub for education, culture, and finance. Substantial donations to New York University and the Sorbonne have lured these prestigious institutions to open satellite campuses in Abu Dhabi. The Guggenheim and Louvre have also expanded their collections to satellite museums in the Emirati capital. However, as the UAE authorities escalate their repression of civil society, the cracks in the country’s veneer of relative tolerance are becoming more apparent.

In recent weeks, the UAE has made headlines for its crackdown on Emiratis advocating for expanded civil liberties and political freedoms. Much of the attention has been focused on the government’s response to the Islamist group Al-Islah (Association for Reform and Guidance), a perceived affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood that the authorities claim is intent on violently overthrowing the regime. The UAE recently put over 90 real or suspected Islah activists on trial for allegedly planning a coup. However, there is no evidence that Al-Islah is anything other than a civil society group calling for closer adherence to Islamic precepts in everyday life. The debate over whether Al-Islah is in league with foreign groups like the Muslim Brotherhood is a red herring that distracts from more pressing concerns about the continued crackdown on civil society in general.

Despite the breakneck pace of its modernization and economic development, the UAE remains one of the more repressive countries in a highly repressive region. While less than a quarter of its roughly 8 million residents are citizens, the political system allows just 129,000 citizens to vote for half of the seats in a pseudo-legislative advisory body that possesses no real power. The other half is appointed by the government, which in turn is run by a council of the seven emirates’ dynastic rulers.

Although regime apologists claim that there is no support for political reform among Emiratis, an unprecedented number of activists, reformists, bloggers, judges, and lawyers—not all of whom are Islamists—have been arrested over the past two years as the authorities attempt to inoculate themselves against any democratic contagion from the Arab Spring.

In addition to domestic dissidents, foreign academics and nongovernmental organizations are being swept up in the regime’s crackdown. The UAE recently denied entry to Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a scholar from the London School of Economics and an outspoken critic of the UAE’s repression of political reform advocates. He had been scheduled to speak, at a University of Sharjah conference on the Arab Spring, about the uprising in Bahrain, which the Bahraini government has brutally suppressed with military support from the UAE. In 2012, Matt Duffy, a professor of journalism at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, was released from his contract and expelled from the country after he criticized government policies toward freedoms of expression and the press.

In March 2012, the local offices of the National Democratic Institute, which is funded by the U.S. government, and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation were shut down by the UAE authorities. The RAND Corporation and Gallup were also forced to shutter their offices last year. Clearly these are not Islamist groups, nor is it likely that they planned a violent overthrow of the regime.

Such repression earned the country score declines in Freedom in the World 2013, the latest edition of Freedom House’s annual report on political rights and civil liberties. The UAE currently ranks among the bottom 20 countries worldwide in every civil liberties category that Freedom House measures save one: rule of law. Even in that category, it is still in the bottom 25 percent and tied with countries like Mauritania, Venezuela, and Qatar.

The UAE is not the only wealthy Gulf country that has intensified repression of civil society since the Arab Spring. Both Oman and Qatar have stepped up efforts to stifle dissent among their populations. Saudi Arabia remains among the most repressive environments in the world, and the violent response by the Bahraini government to its people’s calls for political reform is well documented. Yet the Gulf countries, especially the UAE and Qatar, are very protective of their public image and prestige abroad. Indeed, Qatar is keen to portray itself not just as the host of Al-Jazeera, but as the generous sponsor of popular uprisings in places like Libya and Syria.

It is also important to note that all of the Gulf countries are key allies of the United States. The Sunni minority regime in Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been able to violently suppress dissent without strong objections from Washington. The UAE recently made a significant purchase of U.S. weapons systems in an attempt to deter aggression from Iran, and Qatar houses an important U.S. air base and logistical hub. All of these countries would be crucial to the United States in any potential showdown with Iran. But when U.S. envoys ignore human rights abuses in these countries, or worse yet, explain them away, as Ambassador to the UAE Michael Corbin recently did in an interview with the Khaleej Times, the United States makes itself complicit in the repression.

As recent history has shown in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere in the region, the continued targeting of nonviolent Islamist groups by authoritarian regimes only adds to those groups’ credibility and support among the public, and weakens the legitimacy of the authorities. If the UAE government wants to convince citizens that its policies are better for the country’s future than the program of the opposition, it ought to engage in public debate and civil discourse with the Islamists or any other reformist group, creating an arena for free expression in which all sides can make their case without fear of deportation, imprisonment, or disappearance.

Source: FreedomHouse