Signing the petitions as institutional actors, four of the UAE’s civil society organisations — the associations for jurists, teachers, national heritage professionals, and university faculty — added their weight to the demands and soon after published their own joint statement. In this they argued that ‘civil society in the UAE considers that the time has come to ensure the right of political participation of every citizen, with direct elections for a council with full federal oversight and legislative powers’ and lamented ‘the lack of involvement of citizens to choose their representatives, decades after the establishment of the state’.[935] In parallel to these developments, there were also examples in early 2011 of growing informal opposition activity, with an extensive Reuters report revealing that students planned to upload videos onto YouTube and Facebook regarding the need for political reform, and to meet in secret to discuss democracy and how the country’s oil wealth should be spent. Referring to the economic benefits received courtesy of her nationality, but explaining how this was no longer sufficient, one student interviewee stated ‘I’m well off. I don’t need a revolution because I’m hungry. I want my freedoms, my dignity’. Having provided the journalist with an alias, she explained this was because of her ‘fear of pursuit by security forces’. Meanwhile, other students complained of their rulers, stating that ‘times have changed, they need to change their mentality… they act like we’re kids. We’re conscious, educated people’, while others focused on economic mismanagement, arguing that ‘young people can’t get jobs. We have bad hospitals … and this is a wealthy country’. Some also referred to the inevitability of the Arab Spring impacting on the UAE, explaining that ‘… it’s like wave. If the whole world is changing and this wave is coming and taking everyone with it, well, it’s somehow going to cross this place as well’.[936]
The authorities’ reaction to the petition and the civil society organisations’ demands took many UAE nationals by surprise, as most had not expected a heavy-handed response. In early April 2011 five men — later referred to collectively as the ‘UAE Five’—were taken from their homes, seemingly as a random sample from among the signatories. Bin Ghayth was one of these, along with Ahmed Mansour Al-Shehhi, a founder of www.uaehewar.net. The latter claimed he had been offered a well-paid position in Pakistan by his state-backed employer only a week before. Having refused to leave the UAE, stating that ‘…if they think I’m going to back off, they’re mistaken. As long as I have the ability, I will continue my efforts’,[937] Al-Shehhi was then reportedly arrested by ten officers — only two of whom were in uniform — and his passport and computer seized. In his final tweets that evening he had predicted his arrest, suspecting the police would plant something in his car, and then detailed their attempts to call him down to the street from his apartment.[938] Held in custody without explanation, the authorities appeared unsure how to explain the UAE Five’s disappearance to the broader population. Early indications were that they would be charged with some sort of illegal possession, with reports circulating in the state-backed media that bottles of whiskey had been discovered in Al-Shehhi’s apartment.[939]
As a further response to the petition the authorities also moved to weaken the civil society organisations involved by dismissing their elected board members and replacing them with government-appointed individuals. A group of loyalist lawyers then began preparing a counter petition and a ‘statement of allegiance’ to demonstrate the profession’s supposed commitment to the regime, with their spokesperson stating that ‘we, the lawyers, call upon all citizens to deny activists’ allegations denouncing our government. We ourselves are united in refuting these false claims, and remain fully loyal to His Highness President Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan… and all other crown princes and rulers’. Moreover, their statement also claimed that ‘…activists who try to incite others against the government are therefore creating unnecessary civil unrest and attempting to destabilise the country’.[940] Although the lawyers were careful not to refer specifically to the political prisoners, stating that ‘this is not directed at the detained people, as the independent judiciary in the UAE classifies everyone innocent until proven guilty’ there was nonetheless little doubt that the government attempted to manipulate the trial of the UAE Five. In particular, loyalist rallies outside the court buildings were staged while relatives of the accused were harassed upon entering and leaving the buildings. Most interestingly, the authorities also attempted to influence public opinion by encouraging a number of tribal leaders to denounce the men and even file law suits on behalf of tribes that felt the activism had ‘offended the state and nation’. The state-backed media, however, provided details of only one such tribal meeting and resulting denouncement[941]—an Abu Dhabi-based tribe which includes one of the ruler’s key advisors among its senior members and which for historic reasons has been extremely loyal to the ruling family.[942] Interestingly, a senior member of Al-Shehhi’s tribe — the Shihuh — was reluctant to condemn him, being quoted as saying ‘we still do not know the nature of the accusations directed against Ahmad Al-Shehhi as of yet, nor if he has been officially charged… thus, how are we expected to denounce him before any official accusation takes place?’[943]
With the UAE Five in prison and with www.uaehewar.net eventually going offline after the website’s owners were unable to renew its subscription from their prison cells, the government shifted its focus to top-down reforms and distributing largesse to the national population. In addition to an expansion of the electorate for the September 2011 Federal National Council elections, massive salary increases were also announced for public sector employees, in some cases of up to 100 per cent, while welfare benefits were increased by up to 20 per cent and a $2.7 billion package to assist poorer nationals with outstanding loans was set up. Interviewed by a state-backed newspaper, ministerial employees benefiting from the salary increases stated ‘this is not the first time the President has surprised us with his generosity… it is not about the financial benefit, but about how the people of the country are taken care of’ and ‘it was a big surprise that makes everyone happy, it is like a prize for all’. Similarly, other interviewees stated they planned to use the increases to buy new cars, indulge their wives and children, and upgrade rooms in their houses.[944] A seemingly minor perk, highly symbolic free parking permits for UAE nationals in Dubai, was also announced.[945]
In parallel to this spending programme, it was exposed in May 2011 that the UAE had been hiring a private army of foreign soldiers. Much like the focus on mercenaries in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, it seemed that the UAE authorities were similarly unwilling to take any chances on uncontrollable street protests in the wake of the Arab Spring. Revealed by the New York Times in an extensive report, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi had been employing the founder of Blackwater, a private military company, to create a secret 800-strong force made up of Columbian and South African fighters. At a cost of over $500 million, a base had been constructed in Abu Dhabi’s interior and the men brought into the UAE posing as construction workers. According to documents associated with the project, the force’s raison d’être was to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks, and — crucially—‘put down internal revolts’. Further to this latter objective, the report also stated that the Blackwater founder was under strict instructions to hire no Muslim mercenaries as ‘Muslim soldiers… could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims’, while another document associated with the project described ‘crowdcontrol operations where the crowd is not armed with firearms but does pose a risk using improvised weapons such as clubs and stones’.[946]
942
146. In 1968 over half of the Zaab (Al-Zaabi) tribe, most of whom resided on the Jazirah al-Hamra near to Ra’s al-Khaimah decamped