I am so gutted to hear that the activist i met last year, Ahmed Mansoor, has been imprisoned.
His story is so shocking, it is hard to believe its happening right now in Dubai, but sadly it seems the more you read about the UAE, the murkier it gets. I wrote about meeting him last year. Ahmed is the recipient of Amnesty’s most prestigous award and he has been subjected to all sorts of attacks by the UAE government. His passport was confiscated, $140,000 wiped from his account, banned from working, imprisoned for 3 years with no trial and tortured, violently attacked, and was targeted in an unprecedented iPHONE hack in August. The hack would have used his phone to record and send back all inputs and communication mail/viber/whatsapp/web history. Apple issued a patch update within a day. This type of hack had never been seen before apparently and required a huge amount of resources to pull off. It was very widely covered. Here is a fascinating article in the Guardian

Ahmed Mansoor and myself

 

When I met Ahmed last year he told me that he was afraid he would be arrested and disappear like so many others in the UAE. More than 100 activists have been kidnapped and tortured since 2011. Some have never been seen again

I hope you can please join me in campaigning for Ahmed’s safe release. I feel a real responsibility to help him after meeting with him last year.
Hopefully you can join me at the vigil on the 27th

read more about this on Johnathan Emmet’s blog 

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THINGS YOU CAN DO:
thanks to Johnathan Emmet for these suggestions:

 

Amnesty International have produced a pdf outlining the details of Ahmed case with contact details for the UAE government which you can download here:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde25/5923/2017/en/

 

SOCIAL MEDIA
You can call for Ahmed’s release on social media using the hashtag #FreeAhmed.You can tweet the UAE’s Vice President and Prime Minister Sheik Mohammed on @HHShkMohd

You can write to the UK’s UAE Embassy at:
His Excellency Mr Abdulrahman Ghanem Almutaiwee
Embassy of the United Arab Emirates
30 Princes Gate
London
SW7 1PT
Tweet them on @UAEEMbasssyUK
contact them through their Facebook page
email them on informationuk@mofa.gov.ae
or phone them on 0207 5811281

You can write to your local MP.
If you don’t know who your MP is, you can find out their name and contact details at https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/
The ICFUAE have provided a template letter calling for Ahmed’s release to send to your MP here:
http://icfuae.org.uk/campaigns/urgent-action-demand-ahmed-mansoors-release

PROTEST
And, if you live near London or Manchester you can take part in one of these vigils to demand Ahmed’s release:

London ICFUAE Vigil6.00 pm Monday 27th March, UAE Embassy
http://icfuae.org.uk/events/vigil-release-ahmed-mansoor

Manchester Amnesty Group Vigil6.30 pm Monday 27th March at Manchester Town Hall
https://www.facebook.com/events/617951011735361/