The United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities tortured and killed prominent journalist and poet Habib al-Sayegh for opposing the so-called Abraham Accords with the Israeli regime, a new book reveals.
In his newly published book, Princes and Thieves, journalist Matthew Cole details how Emirati security officers raided al-Sayegh’s home in Abu Dhabi in August 2019, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility, where he was tortured to death.
Interrogators pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and repeatedly beat him with a sharp metal object, leaving injuries that could potentially be identified through an independent forensic examination, according to the account.
The book links the detention and killing to al-Sayegh’s outspoken opposition to the UAE’s plans to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, which he condemned in a newspaper column published on August 11, 2019.
Writing in Al Khaleej, where he served as editor-in-chief, al-Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” and challenged those promoting normalization by asking, “Who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Just nine days later, on August 20, 2019, Emirati state media announced his death without providing a cause, leaving unanswered questions about the circumstances surrounding his death.
The revelations have prompted Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) to call on three UN special rapporteurs to launch an independent investigation into al-Sayegh’s death.
“The allegations that UAE security forces tortured and killed one of the country’s most prominent poets are horrifying and demand an independent investigation,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director.
DAWN also highlighted the need to establish what happened to al-Sayegh’s body, with the book revealing that officials held it for more than a day, prevented his family from viewing it, and later moved it from its original burial place to an unmarked grave in the desert.
The organization urged UN experts to demand al-Sayegh’s death certificate, the officially recorded cause of death and any detention records, while calling for his family and an independent forensic specialist to be allowed to establish the location and condition of his grave.
Isabelle Hayslip, DAWN’s advocacy associate, underscored the disturbing sequence of events surrounding his death: “Habib al-Sayegh wrote that Israel was the enemy, and nine days later he was dead with no cause given. One year later his government, notorious for their intolerance for dissent, normalized relations with Israel.”
“Those facts are not in dispute. What happened in between is the question, and only an independent investigation can answer it,” she added.
The UAE formally normalized relations with Israel in September 2020 under the US-brokered so-called Abraham Accords, alongside Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
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