Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.30.3
Object Name
Badge board
Title
'Democracy' 'Freedom' 'Pay Attention'
Place
Manchester, UAE
People
Ahmed Mansoor Al Shehhi
Events
UAE Five trial
Description
A white pin board with three circular badges attached. Badge 1 is yellow with white text: 'Freedom'. Badge 2 is red with white text: 'Democracy'. Badge 3 is white with red text: 'Pay Attention.' All three badges have the campaign website freeahmed.net written on them.
The Free Ahmed campaign objects were created in collaboration with artists from Manchester to raise awareness of Ahmed Mansoor Al Shehhi. Mansoor is a human rights activist, blogger and poet from the United Arab Emirates who is currently a political prisoner serving a ten year sentence on charges relating to his social media blogs that are critical of the government. Mansoor was tried for insulting Emirates heads of state in 2011 as part of the UAE Five trial, but was pardoned by the country's president. Following his pardon he and his family were placed under covert survailence including using the controversial Pegasus spy software, and he was eventually rearrested in 2017. Human Rights Watch considers Mansoor's conviction an attack on legitimate human rights work and journalism. In 2021 a letter was smuggled to a British Arabic news site revealing that he has been held in solitary confinement since 2017, and denied access to any contact with family or other prisoners, as well as
denying him a bed in his cell. Following this revelation the European Union passed a resolution pressing the government of the UAE for his immediate release due to their inhumane treatment of him in detention.
The campaign from Manchester focused on the city's connections to the UAE through the country's investment in local sports teams, which activists consider a form of 'sports washing', that is, laundering the country's negative reputation by connecting themselves to positively viewed causes.
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