Matthew Hedges, British graduate student detained by the United Arab Emirates for seven months, has published an account of his ordeal. It speaks to the reality of the U.S. intelligence partners in the Middle East. They’re a tyrannical, torturing bunch.
Hedges was arrested when he arrived at the Dubai airport on trip to do research for his doctoral dissertation on civil military relations in the UAE. His interrogators thought that was a ruse.
All of that mattered little to the Emirati intelligence-service interrogators—in their view, I had been collecting information on the country’s security installations and procedures, and there was nothing I could say to change their mind.
Hedges was kept in solitary confinement, not allowed (with two brief exceptions) to talk to family or British government officials.
Still, I am the first to recognize that I was among the lucky ones. The UAE is a serial human-rights abuser, and while I was detained, I regularly heard people being physically tortured in adjacent rooms.
This is nothing new for the wealthy Persian Gulf monarchy. At a conference held by the American Society for International Law in Washington, Hedges and other talked about the abuses of the UAE security forces.
Hedges concludes
Western governments’ complicity, primarily by way of silence, gives authoritarian rulers confidence in their actions. National leaders, Britain’s included, are reticent to condemn countries they regard as security allies over human-rights violations (President Donald Trump has gone further, explicitly dismissing such concerns in favor of arms sales)
The price of silence is abuse of human rights.
Source: Matthew Hedges: The UAE Held Me as a Spy. The West Is Complicit. – The Atlantic
