DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates has condemned a European Parliament resolution criticising its human rights record as “biased and prejudiced”, accusing the chamber of insufficient research.
The resolution, which was passed on Friday, attacked the Gulf state’s treatment of political dissidents and its use of the death penalty while calling on the major oil producer to respect the rights of women and migrant workers.
“The biased and prejudiced report levelled unsubstantiated accusations without examining the facts of the situation on the ground,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said late on Friday.
He praised the UAE’s achievements “particularly in the field of migrant workers rights ... and the empowerment of women”, saying that people from more than 200 nations lived in the country “in an atmosphere of openness and tolerance”.
The European resolution was not backed up by any threat of action against the UAE.
The European parliament resolution said the UAE had “accelerated its crackdown on human rights defenders and civil society activists, bringing the number of political detainees to 64”, most held in solitary confinement and without legal help. It said others had been subjected to harassment, travel bans and deportation.
In March, the UAE closed two international thinktanks promoting democracy overseas, Germany’s Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute, without giving reasons.
REUTERS
