The state of mental health in the UAE

Breaking news: Good old Sheikh Issa, who had previously admitted that he had been filmed beating, raping and horrifically torturing a grain dealer in 2004, was found not guilty by the court today, after his defense of being under the influence of drugs was - surprise surprise - accepted by the judge.

Photo: Scene from the video nasty of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan torturing someone in 2004. He was only doing this due to the influence of drugs, obviously.

'Beyond reasonable doubt' is clearly a philosophy that does not apply to UAE trials, especially when you happen to be the brother of the ruler of the UAE and a son of Sheikh Zayed, the UAE's founding father.

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A forensic medicine expert told the court in the previous hearing the medication Sheikh Issa was on “can cause anger, suicide, violence, depression and loss of memory”.

Funny how 'torturing the hell out of someone' was not actually one of the reported side effects...


Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news today, the Emirati man who had admitted raping and murdering a 4 year old boy in a mosque was declared sane by the expert Psychiatric Evaluation Board appointed by the courts. His valiant lawyer had entered the request as pretty much the only way to get his client off the death penalty, seeing as he'd already confessed several times, including in court.

In summary:
1/ Psychopathic homocidal paedophile who in the process of the horrible crime defiles a holy mosque in a crazed opportunistic frenzy, (a place where you're almost certain to get caught too) AND who confesses the crime despite there being a death penalty - sane.

2/ Commit Psychopathically Premeditated torture, get filmed in the act of anal rape (with a cattle prod) and committing grievous bodily harm, aided and abbetted by others (presumably not on psychotropic drugs), in revenge for being short changed on some grain while apparently on some medication that could, possibly, have side effects - innocent due to temporary insanity.

So all's well with the UAE Mental Health evaluation system then. One flew over the cuckoo's nest indeed...



I think both are excellent decisions.

A psychopathic nutcase will hopefully be executed very quickly for raping and murdering a 4 yr old.

While another psychopathic nutcase will demonstrate to the rest of the world the real fundamental principals of the UAE legal system when you are very important and related to the ruler of the country.

UAE Journalism gets bolder - story on Sheik Issa's video nasty published in the UAE!

Kudos to The National, probably the GCC's closest thing to a real newspaper, for publishing a story on the bizarre Abu Dhabi Royal Sheik Issa's torture video. They actually identify the UAE's newest reality youtube sensation and stated his full name: Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.





OK, they are able to claim cover as simply reporting a statement by the UAE official Human Rights Office (HRO), but still, remember the The National is Abu Dhabi funded.
So, well done The National.

Rights body reviews abuse video claims

National Staff
Last Updated: April 30. 2009 1:23AM UAE / April 29. 2009 9:23PM GMT

The Human Rights Office of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department has launched a review into the alleged abuse of an Afghan man by a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family.

The decision to carry out the review follows the airing by an American television station of a video purporting to show Sheikh Issa bin Zayed Al Nahyan carrying out the attack.

The victim, identified in media reports as Mohammed Shah Poor, is reportedly an Afghan trader whom Sheikh Issa believed had short-changed him on a grain delivery.

A statement released by the Ministry of Interior last week said those featured in the video had decided not to pursue legal action against each other, but the Human Rights Office (HRO) said yesterday that because of possible human rights violations, a review was necessary.

In a statement, the HRO said the video contained “graphic scenes of physical abuse” and had been “widely circulated online and in international media”.

“The Government of Abu Dhabi unequivocally condemns the actions depicted in the video,” the office said.

“The HRO of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department will conduct a comprehensive review of the matter immediately and make its findings public at the earliest opportunity.

“Based on the statement made by the UAE Ministry of Interior, the HRO of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department understands that the matter depicted in the video was resolved between the two parties and that no criminal charges were brought by either party.

“However, the HRO believes that the events depicted in the video appear to represent a violation of human rights and therefore these events should be fully reviewed in their own right.”

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In the video, a man identified by the American television report as Sheikh Issa is seen directing and taking part in the sustained abuse, aided by other men, including one apparently in uniform.
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Sadistic Torture tape by Abu Dhabi Sheikh Issa gets UAE in trouble

This is starting to become a UAE blog… ah well. Here's another reason why it's better to live in Oman...

This is a story you are not likely to see reported in the UAE papers. The mighty Abu Dhabi is in a bit of trouble over the actions of one Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed and also younger brother of the President of the U.A.E., Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed.

Tapes released by a former business partner of the Sheikh, and broadcast last week by US network ABC, showed the UAE Sheikh personally torturing an Afghan trader over a missing load of grain. The story was around in mid-2008, but now that ABC have broadcast it, the issue is again in the news: the main question is what will the new US Administration do?





The 45min video shows the man, whose identity in the tape was apparently confirmed by the UAE Ministry of the Interior as indeed being Sheikh Issa, clobbering him with wood panels from which nails protrude and electrocuting his genitals and anus. He then pours salt over the man's wounds and drives over him with a Mercedes SUV. Perhaps more worrying, he is clearly assisted in all this by a uniformed UAE Policeman.

The tape can be seen at UAETorture.com, but be warned, it is exceptionally sickening (apparently my readers from the UAE without VPN cover will not be able to go to this website, funnily enough!).

The main issue is that the UAE Government decided that, because the Afgan who was tortured survived and is apparently unwilling to press charges, it’s all OK – despite the presence of UAE Police helping to hold him down. The event was filmed in 2005, and the US Embassy was also made aware at the time but chose to simply give it a one-liner in the 2008 Human Rights report for the UAE. I guess it helps when your brother is the Minister of the Interior, and that the hapless GW Bush's administration was keen not to offend one of its main regional allies, especially over torture - a subject GW was having his own problems with.

You can read the full story at ABC News.

ABC News Exclusive: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh.
Police in Uniform Join In as Victim Is Whipped, Beaten, Electrocuted, Run Over by SUV

A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirate shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

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In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed.

"The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior," the Interior Ministry's statement declared.

The Minister of the Interior is also one of Sheikh Issa's brother.

The government statement said its review found "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department."

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The Sheikh begins by stuffing sand down the man's mouth, as the police officers restrain the victim. Then he fires bullets from an automatic rifle around him as the man howls incomprehensibly.

At another point on the tape, the Sheikh can be seen telling the cameraman to come closer. "Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show," the Sheikh says.

Over the course of the tape, Sheikh Issa acts in an increasingly sadistic manner.

He uses an electric cattle prod against the man's testicles and inserts it in his anus. At another point, as the man wails in pain, the Sheikh pours lighter fluid on the man's testicles and sets them aflame. Then the tape shows the Sheikh sorting through some wooden planks. "I remember there was one that had a nail in it," he says on the tape.

The Sheikh then pulls down the pants of the victim and repeatedly strikes him with board and its protruding nail. At one point, he puts the nail next to the man's buttocks and bangs it through the flesh.

"Where's the salt," asks the Sheikh as he pours a large container of salt on to the man's bleeding wounds.

The victim pleads for mercy, to no avail.

The final scene on the tape shows the Sheikh positioning his victim on the desert sand and then driving over him repeatedly. A sound of breaking bones can be heard on the tape.

Sheikh Issa's lawyer, Daryl Bristow of Baker Botts in Houston, told ABC News "the tape is the tape."

The torture victim was identified by Nabulsi as an Afghan grain dealer, Mohammed Shah Poor, who the Sheikh accused of short changing on a grain delivery to his royal ranch on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi.

The UAE government, in its statement, says the matter was settled privately between the Sheikh and the grain dealer, "by agreeing not to bring formal charges against each other, i.e., theft on the one hand and assault on the other hand."

Meanwhile, in other UAE news:

An Omani prisoner, identified only as Mahmoud, escaped from a UAE hospital a couple of days ago, after serving a year in Jail in Sharjah for smuggling vehicles.see Gulf News.

Prisoner at large will be given longer jail term when caught
By Mariam M. Al Serkal Staff Reporter
Published: April 27, 2009, 23:54

Sharjah: A runaway convict has been at large since Sunday and police are unable to confirm whether he is still in the country.
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The 25-year-old Omani prisoner, identified by police as Mahmoud, was serving a jail term for smuggling vehicles out of the country and taking them to other Gulf States.

The police official also pointed out that the convict had already spent more than one year at Sharjah Central Jail.
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The prisoner was transferred to a room at the Osteopathy Department where he escaped after removing the handcuffs and jumping out of the third-floor room

Dubai are upping their inspections of their squalid labourer camps following the recent reports in the UK media on how dire conditions are. Good to see the media doing its job. Pity it wasn't the local reporters...

And, again after international pressure, the UAE prison service have released British woman (and ex-Omani florist) Marnie Pearce early and suspended her deportation order.

Pearce released after serving adultery term
Rasha Abu Baker and Nour Samaha

Last Updated: April 27. 2009 11:00PM UAE / April 27. 2009 7:00PM GMT DUBAI // A British woman who was sentenced to three months in prison for committing adultery was yesterday released from Dubai Central Jail.

A spokesperson for the prison said Marnie Pearce, 40, was released at around 9am after serving 68 days of her three-month sentence. An order to deport Ms Pearce after serving her sentence has been suspended, the spokesperson said.

“She has been released but her passport is being held. Ms Pearce will not be leaving the country because her deportation order was suspended and for some unresolved legal reasons her passport is being held with public prosecution,” she said.
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The Iranian way on how to deal with free speech

I'm back after too long out of the country on business. Sorry guys. Didn't even have time to post a 'back in 10 days' sign. Nice touch about prison tho Lurker... reminded me about this story.

Today. this article in the Economist struck me as a great example of the way many Gulf countries treat the idea of freedom of speech.

In return for protesting against the Government in Iran, this poor guy was tortured for years. Finally escaping to the USA.

NINE years ago, Ahmad Batebi appeared on the cover of The Economist. He was a 21-year-old student, one of thousands who protested against Iran’s government that summer. He was photographed holding aloft a T-shirt bespattered with the blood of a fellow protester. Soon afterwards, he was arrested and shown our issue of July 17th 1999. “With this”, he was told, “you have signed your death warrant.”

During his interrogation he was blindfolded and beaten with cables until he passed out. His captors rubbed salt into his wounds to wake him up, so they could torture him more. They held his head in a drain full of sewage until he inhaled it. He recalls yearning for a swift death to end the pain. He was played recordings of what he was told was his mother being tortured. His captors wanted him to betray his fellow students, to implicate them in various crimes and to say on television that the blood on that T-shirt was only red paint. He says he refused.

He was sentenced to death for “creating street unrest”. But after a global outcry, the sentence was commuted to 15 years in jail. He speculates that his high profile made it hard to kill him without attracting negative publicity. For two years, he was kept in solitary confinement, in a cell that was little more than a toilet hole with a wooden board on top. He was tortured constantly. Only when he was allowed to mingle with other prisoners again did he begin to overcome his despair.
Click here to find out more!

He suffered a partial stroke that left the right side of his body without feeling. He needed medical attention. The regime did not want to be blamed for him dying behind bars, he says, so he was allowed out for treatment. Three months ago, on the day of the Persian new year, he escaped into Iraq. On June 24th he arrived in America.

He spoke to The Economist on July 7th. Looking at the picture that sparked his ordeal, he says that another man in his place might be angry, but he is not. Mr Batebi is a photographer himself. He says he understands what journalism involves. Had we not published the picture, he says, another paper might have. Looking at the same picture, his lawyer, interpreter and friend Lily Mazahery says she is close to tears: in it, the young Mr Batebi’s pale arms are as yet unscarred by torture.

The protests Mr Batebi took part in nine years ago frightened Iran’s rulers. The students were angry about censorship, the persecution of intellectuals and the thugs who beat up any student overheard disparaging the regime. Mr Batebi thinks Iran could well turn solidly democratic some day. In neighbouring states, religious extremism is popular. In Iran, he says, the government is religiously extreme, but the people are not.

He is cagey about how exactly he escaped. But he says he used a cellphone camera to record virtually every step of his journey, and will soon go public with the pictures and his commentary. Meanwhile, he seems to be enjoying America. He praises the way “people have the opportunity to become who they want to be”. Shortly after he arrived, he posted a picture of himself in front of the Capitol on his Farsi-language blog, with the caption: “Your hands will never touch me again.”