Arbitrary arrest and detention

[4] Depending on the social context, many or the vast majority of arbitrarily arrested individuals may be held incommunicado and their whereabouts can be concealed from their family, associates, the public population and open trial courts.

On 29 September, the media reported that following a violent protest in Nouakchott against the national registration initiative, security forces entered private residences without warrants and arrested approximately 20 individuals.

Some were imprisoned accumulatively for more than 200 days after Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha issued a declaration in November 2020 to charge protesters with offenses under all laws, including lèse-majesté.

Reports of UAE authorities arbitrarily targeting Shia residents, whether Lebanese, Iraqi, Afghan, Pakistani, or otherwise, often emerge at times of increased regional tensions.

[24] A British football coach, Billy Hood was detained by the Dubai authorities and sentenced to ten years in prison over CBD vape oil left in his car by a visiting friend.

During February 2022 visit of Prince William to the UAE for Dubai Expo 2020, Hood was "violently attacked" by four Emirati prison guards after he punched the wall of his jail cell out of "frustration".

The court convicted him solely on the basis of his Facebook posts criticising the Jordanian royal family and government, handing al-Atoum a 10-year prison sentence.

She was arrested and charged with "breaching the privacy of government employees", stemming from an incident during Lar's arrival at Dubai airport, where she and her travelling companions were kept by immigration officials in a room for six hours without explanation.

The action, which Dubai authorities charged as "sharing a video of government employees online without their consent", resulted in a sentence of one year in prison, later reduced to three months on appeal, following social media campaigns and representations from Lar's parliamentarian.

[27] On 28 January 2022, the Emirati authorities arrested Steve Long, a British man from Stockport, for telling airline staff he feared there was a bomb on the plane he was about to board to return home, during an apparent psychotic breakdown.

Family members believed that Long, an ambulance paramedic, and former soldier who had served tours in Iraq and Bosnia, working closely with bomb disposal units, was affected by a drone strike in Abu Dhabi in January 2022, triggering his mental collapse.

[28] On 17 July 2022, the UAE authorities arrested US citizen Asim Ghafoor, the former lawyer of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and sentenced him to three years in prison.

[29] In August 2024, two brothers from Ohio, Joseph and Josua Lorenzo, were sentenced to 4 months in Dubai prison over allegations of alcohol consumption, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer and damaging a patrol vehicle.

On 3 January 2025, he was arrested again by Dubai police, stayed for half a day, based on another extradition request from Kyrgyz government over charges of bogus fraud.