Rights Group Asks UN to Probe Death of Emirati Poet
A new book alleges Habib al-Sayegh was tortured and killed in 2019, prompting calls for an independent forensic review of his remains.
By Alina Carter ·
The United Nations has been asked to review the circumstances surrounding the 2019 death of Habib al-Sayegh, a prominent Emirati poet and editor. The request comes from Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), which cited new disclosures suggesting the writer was detained and tortured after criticizing regional diplomacy.
The allegations stem from Princes and Thieves, a book by Matthew Cole published last week. Cole writes that al-Sayegh, then 64, was taken from his home in the United Arab Emirates and held in a prison. According to the account, interrogators extracted several of his teeth using pliers and struck him repeatedly with a sharp metal object. Dawn noted on Thursday that such injuries would leave physical evidence detectable by a forensic examination.
Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director for Dawn, wrote to three UN special rapporteurs on Thursday. He requested that the body request the UAE to release al-Sayegh’s death certificate and detention records. Jarrar also asked that the organization allow an independent forensic expert to inspect the grave and confirm the cause of death, noting that the family was initially barred from viewing the body.
Al-Sayegh served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper Al Khaleej and chairman of the Emirates Writers and Writers Union. He had also received a state honorary award in 2012 for his work on national identity. In a column dated 11 August 2019, he described Israel as a real and natural enemy and questioned who had authorized normalization advocates to speak for the public. The state news agency announced his death nine days later without specifying a cause.
Cole’s book claims that officials moved the body from an Abu Dhabi cemetery to an unmarked desert grave within a day of burial. This action prevented the family from praying at the site. Jarrar emphasized that despite a pattern of missing dissidents, the UAE is a party to the Convention against Torture. He urged the UN to share findings with the Human Rights Council and seek accountability for any violations of international law.
Dawn was founded by Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist who was killed in Istanbul in 2018. Al-Sayegh’s death occurred a year after Khashoggi’s. Since the UAE normalized relations with Israel in a ceremony at the White House in 2020, the two nations have strengthened ties. The UAE recently indicated to the US that it saw no alternative to Trump’s Gaza plan, which many interpreted as a call for displacement.
