Seventeen rights groups on Sunday called on the United Arab Emirates to immediately disclose the whereabouts and legal status of poet Abdel Rahman Youssef Al-Qaradawi, a dual Egyptian-Turkish national who has been forcibly disappeared for a year following his arrest in Lebanon and transfer to Abu Dhabi.
In a joint statement, the signatories — including the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, El Nadeem Center, and the Egyptian Front for Human Rights — condemned Abdel Rahman's continued detention without charge as “arbitrary” and in violation of international law, citing credible fears that he is at risk of torture.
Abdel Rahman, known for his outspoken political poetry and criticism of Arab regimes, was arrested by Lebanese authorities on Dec. 28, 2024, while traveling from Syria to Turkey. His arrest was reportedly based on a security cooperation agreement with Egypt, according to the statement.
On Jan. 8, 2025, he was transferred to the UAE under a provisional arrest request issued by the General Secretariat of the Arab Interior Ministers Council. UAE authorities claimed he had committed acts “likely to disturb public order,” according to a statement published by the state-run WAM news agency, without providing further details.
Since his transfer, all communication between Abdel Rahman and his family or legal representatives has been cut off, aside from two brief visits. The groups described his ongoing disappearance as a “flagrant violation of the principle of non-refoulement,” warning that it disregards United Nations alerts over the risk of torture.
The organizations held Lebanese authorities directly responsible for exposing Abdel Rahman to these dangers and called for an independent investigation into the circumstances of his arrest and extradition. They also voiced concern over what they described as the “limited public role” of Turkish authorities in pursuing the case, urging Ankara to intensify its diplomatic and consular efforts to protect him as a Turkish citizen.
In a separate petition published earlier by the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, 24 rights groups, political parties and 109 individuals condemned Abdel Rahman’s detention in Lebanon and demanded his immediate release. The petition described the case as a “stark example of transnational repression” — a practice increasingly used, it said, to silence dissent and target human rights defenders beyond national borders.
Shortly before his arrest, Al-Qaradawi posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) from the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where he expressed support for what he described as a “new Syrian leadership” and warned of regional efforts to suppress change. He accused governments in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others of conspiring against democratic movements, referring to them as “regimes of Arab disgrace and Arab Zionists.”
“You will not be able to do anything in the face of the flood of change,” he said.
