The dream of Jordanian Manal Mahilan, 69-years-old, of seeing her sons released from an Emirati prison, has gone unrealised.
Mahilan has died whilst her sons, Yassir and Abdullah Abu Bakr, remain political detainees in the UAE’s prisons.
Over the seven years since their detention, Manal Mahilan made numerous appeals to the Emirati authorities to release her two sons, and so see them before she died. But, her pleas were not answered.
Mahilan also appealed to the Jordanian authorities to intervene in their case, but this also fell on deaf ears. The Jordanian government has continued to ignore the plight of Jordanian detainees in the UAE, and has not taken any action to aid their release.
Mahilan’s sons are two of several Jordanians imprisoned in the UAE, with others including Maher Abu al-Shawarib and Baha Matar, who were detained in 2015 on charges of “promoting a terrorist organization” and later sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of million dirhams, or approximately US$272,000 dollars.
The latter detainees and their families deny the various accusations made against them, and say that the court based its conviction merely on the two women having been sent certain videos via WhatsApp.
The four detainees have together been on hunger strike for a number of weeks, in protest against the harsh conditions and general ill-treatment they are suffering, including medical negligence.
