UAE sentences prominent activist to decade in jail

DUBAI — An Emirati court has sentenced an award-winning human rights activist to 10 years in prison for insulting the "status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols," progovernment media reported yesterday.

The Abu Dhabi court also imposed a fine of a million dirhams ($275,000 or 235,000 euros) and ordered Ahmed Mansoor be placed under surveillance for three years after his release, The National and Gulf News reported.

The 48-year-old was convicted of attempting to harm his country's relations with its neighbors by spreading misinformation on social media, The National said.

Foreign journalists are not allowed to attend such trials in the United Arab Emirates, whose ruling families rarely tolerate opposition. Mansoor was cleared of conspiring with a "terrorist organization".

His court-appointed lawyer Tariq al-Shamsi had told an earlier hearing that Mansoor should be cleared of all charges.

Mansoor's arrest in March 2017 triggered an international outcry led by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Mansoor, a father of four, won the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2015 for his efforts to introduce greater political and civil rights in the UAE.

During his detention, the prosecutor accused him of using social media to "publish false information and rumors, spread tendentious ideas that would sow sedition, sectarianism and hatred," state news agency WAM reported.