UAE (Washington Insider Magazine) -One of the wealthiest countries in the world, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is famous for its incredible architecture and lavish cityscapes. The UAE paints itself as one of the more progressive countries in its region, but many people are beginning to call this a façade.
At the Expo 2020 Dubai event — a popular and international cultural event — the UAE constructed a public image of freedom and openness that is contrary to their consistent human rights violations against those who speak out against the government. Even though the UAE presents a very progressive, open international persona, its free speech rights are essentially nonexistent. Many people who speak out against or criticize the government are arrested. These stringent restraints on what can and cannot be said have caused many residents and UAE-based companies to carefully monitor what they say for fear that the same thing may happen to them.
Human rights researchers, academics, journalists, and United Nations experts have requested permission to enter the country and investigate the situation, but their requests have been repeatedly denied. Unfortunately, the UAE government has systematically put a ban on the freedom of expression and association. They’ve prosecuted and arrested hundreds of judges, lawyers, teachers, students, and activists. Using advanced spyware and cyber surveillance methods, they’ve hacked into and monitored the devices of everyone from human rights activists to government critics.
In 2009, a UAE government-sponsored cyber surveillance agency called Project Raven was created. By recruiting former U.S. intelligence officers, the government’s goal was to allow Americans to run the program until Emirati officers were trained enough to run it themselves. In 2014, Lori Stroud — a former member of the U.S. National Security Agency — joined a team of over a dozen other previous U.S. intelligence officers called Project Raven.
Using advanced cyber surveillance techniques, this team helped the UAE surveil other governments, militants, human rights activists, and anyone else who was critical of the government. However, in 2016, Project Raven morphed into Dark Matter, a group bent on cyber-surveilling Americans. Stroud — an American — finally stepped away from the team, expressing her dismay at the practice of spying on her fellow Americans.
Many other members of Project Raven came out and spoke about their experiences as well, commenting on the severity of the UAE’s obsession with cyber surveillance and cybercrime. Ex-members say that the team used numerous cyber tools to spy on activists, political leaders, and suspected terrorists. One of these tools was Karma: a state-of-the-art cyber espionage tool that allowed Project Raven to hack into iPhones. By exploiting a weakness in Apple’s iMessage software, Karma granted UAE’s government access to photographs, text messages, locations, and emails.
Groups such as Human Rights Watch have publicly and officially accused the UAE of suppressing free speech and unfairly holding dissidents, but the story seems to go beyond that. According to Stroud, Project Raven’s targets were various and sweeping: Yemeni militants, foreign enemies like Turkey, Qatar, and Iran, and anyone who criticized or insulted the government. Under the government’s direction, members of Project Raven would monitor social media accounts and target those who officials felt had somehow insulted the government. Sometimes, these “targets” were as young as 16.
The truth is that the UAE has a startling proclivity for spying on its own citizens and punishing them for any acts of free speech. The hugely controversial 2012 cybercrime law was essentially used as a free pass for the government to spy on their citizens. The law gave the UAE’s government a legal right to arrest, prosecute, and imprison anyone who uses technology — such as the web or social media — to criticize government officials, suggest government reform, rally people together for unlicensed demonstrations, and many other things that the government deems to be wrong.
Though it continues to portray itself as a progressive, open country, the UAE has an incredibly backward policy on freedom of speech. Citizens are prohibited from speaking out about the government in any way; and if they do speak out, they are usually arrested, detained, and prosecuted. Using advanced cyber surveillance, the UAE continues to spy on its own citizens, creating a feeling of constant fear. Despite constant outcry from human rights groups, the UAE refuses to change its policies.
Sources:
UAE: Cybercrimes Decree Attacks Free Speech | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
Special Report: Inside the UAE’s secret hacking team of U.S. mercenaries | Reuters
UAE: Tolerance Narrative a Sham | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
