HARASSMENT

Harassment was the most documented violation in MENA in 2022, reported in at least 14 out of 19 countries. Harassment was documented in multiple forms, affected various groups of people trying to exercise their civic rights and freedoms, and in retaliation for their efforts to do so.

A worrying trend noted yet again in the past year was the systematic judicial and institutional persecution of HRDs who are in the criminal justice system, in deliberate efforts to keep them stuck in long cycles of criminal litigation. This was seen through the continued arbitrary detention of HRDs even after they had completed their sentences, the re-imprisonment of those recently released, the arbitrary extension of detention periods just days before release from jail was due and arbitrary summons for interrogation. These tactics, which are meant to harass and intimidate HRDs, were documented in countries including Iran, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In Iran, the status of feminist activists and WHRDs remains a particular issue of concern, as the authorities continue repeatedly to sentence and imprison WHRDs, keeping them in jail. In April 2022, WHRD Narges Mohammadi was re-imprisoned and returned to Qarchak Prison soon after being released on medical furlough following heart surgery. In Palestine, Israeli occupation authorities repeatedly extended the administrative detention of journalists just days before their release, as seen in September 2022 when they renewed the detention of journalist Bushra Al-Taweel for another three months for the third time in a row, and in November 2022 when they extended the administrative detention of journalist Amer Abu Arafah for four months days before his release was due.

In the UAE, an escalating trend was documented of the authorities keeping HRDs in detention past their prison sentences. The authorities continued to detain 40 prisoners of conscience, many of them part of a group collectively known as the UAE94, after they finished their prison sentences. The group was arrested in 2012 in retaliation against their peaceful pro-democracy activities and in 2013 sentenced to between seven and 15 years in prison following a grossly unfair trial. HRD Dr Mohammed Al-Roken also remains in detention despite completing his 10-year sentence in July 2022, after he was charged and sentenced for providing legal assistance to victims of human rights violations.

A similar tactic was documented in Saudi Arabia, when the authorities continued to arbitrarily detain Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh for a further eight months, even though he had completed his eight-year prison sentence earlier in 2022. In Kuwait, HRD Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli was summoned by public prosecutors in March 2022 three times in one month and interrogated for three and a half hours. The spate of repeated interrogations was linked to a complaint filed against him by the director of the Office of the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents’ Affairs in relation to content on Al-Fadhli’s Twitter account. Al-Fadhli was charged with insult and defamation of a government employee. In Lebanon, state security officers harassed and insulted protesters who gathered outside the Justice Minister’s home in September 2022 to protest against the Higher Judicial Council’s decision to appoint an alternate investigative judge in the probe into the devastating 2020 explosion in Beirut.