A prominent U.S.-based Arab human rights advocacy organization is formally petitioning three United Nations special rapporteurs to launch a full, impartial probe into the alleged 2019 torture and extrajudicial killing of celebrated Emirati literary figure Habib al-Sayegh, citing explosive new evidence laid out in a recently released investigative nonfiction work. The call for action was issued Thursday by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a group co-founded by slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi — who was assassinated inside his country’s Istanbul consulate exactly one year prior to al-Sayegh’s reported death. Matthew Cole’s newly published book *Princes and Thieves* lays out detailed, unreported accounts of the 64-year-old poet and writer’s final days: a decorated public intellectual who once served as chairman of the Emirates Writers Union, secretary-general of the General Union of Arab Writers, and editor-in-chief of prominent regional newspaper Al Khaleeg, al-Sayegh was forcibly abducted from his UAE residence, transferred to a state detention facility, and tortured to death between August 16 and 19, 2019. The book’s sourced accounts describe interrogators using pliers to yank out multiple of al-Sayegh’s teeth, and repeatedly striking him with a sharp metal implement to inflict severe, permanent injury. DAWN’s advocacy director Raed Jarrar emphasized in his formal letter to the UN experts that the distinct, heavy physical traces of such abuse would be clearly identifiable via a professional forensic examination of the writer’s remains. According to Cole’s findings, Emirati authorities held al-Sayegh’s body for more than 24 hours and prohibited his grieving family from accessing it before first interring him in an Abu Dhabi public cemetery, then secretly exhuming his remains to re-bury them in an unmarked, remote desert grave to prevent his loved ones from conducting traditional Islamic funeral prayers at his resting site. DAWN is demanding the UN special rapporteurs compel the UAE government to produce al-Sayegh’s official death certificate, full documented cause of death, any existing records of his detention, and an official formal response to the book’s damning allegations, as well as grant his family and an independent, court-approved forensic expert full access to locate and examine his final grave. The organization further requested that the UN panel submit all verified findings to the UN Human Rights Council, and pursue formal accountability for any confirmed breaches of international human rights law, noting that the UAE is a signatory state to the UN Convention Against Torture, despite a well-documented longstanding pattern of enforced disappearances targeting dissident voices within its borders. The respected literary figure, who was awarded a state honor in 2012 for his contributions to preserving and advancing Emirati national cultural identity, had published a public column just days before his 2019 disappearance, in which he labeled Israel a “real and natural enemy” and publicly questioned the legitimacy of political actors pushing for unapproved normalization with the state, asking “Who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?” The UAE’s official state news agency announced al-Sayegh’s sudden death days later, but never released any public details on the circumstances or medical cause of his passing. Barely more than 12 months after al-Sayegh’s death, the UAE formally signed the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords to fully normalize diplomatic and economic relations with Israel during a 2020 White House ceremony overseen by then-U.S. President Donald Trump. Bilateral ties between Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem have deepened dramatically in the years since, even after the UN formally designated Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a potential genocide, with the two states forging expanding defence and security partnerships amid shifting regional geopolitical tensions. The UAE has taken an unusually divergent stance from most other Arab states following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel: its U.S.-based ambassador stated on public record last year that Abu Dhabi saw no viable alternative to Trump’s controversial “Gaza Riviera” redevelopment proposal, widely condemned across the Arab world as a blueprint for mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinian residents. Previous investigative reporting from Middle East Eye has also documented that Emirati officials have actively lobbied U.S. policymakers to reject a formal Arab League-backed peace plan for Gaza, and have openly supported Israeli proposals to forcibly displace large swathes of Gaza’s Palestinian population into neighbouring Egypt.
UN must investigate death of UAE poet and writer Habib al-Sayegh, advocacy group says
