57 Bangladeshis Jailed For Protesting In UAE: Report

An Emirati court has sentenced 57 Bangladeshi expatriates to lengthy prison terms for protesting against their government in the Gulf country, where demonstrations are banned, state media reported Monday.

Protests have swept Bangladesh this month against a quota system for civil service jobs that critics say benefits supporters of autocratic Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

In Bangladesh, near-daily marches escalated last week into civil unrest, leaving 163 people dead. More than 500 people, including some opposition leaders, have been arrested.

On Monday, the official Emirati news agency WAM said three Bangladeshi expatriates were sentenced to life, 53 others to 10 years in prison and one to 11 years for participating in protests.

The defendants had "gathered and incited riots in several streets across the United Arab Emirates on Friday", WAM said, adding they would be deported after the completion of their prison terms.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal's ruling was made on Sunday after a swift investigation that had been ordered on Friday, WAM reported.

It quoted a witness as saying that "the defendants gathered and organised large-scale marches in several streets of the UAE in protest against decisions made by the Bangladeshi government".

The UAE, an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms, is populated mostly by expatriates, many of them South Asians who work as labourers.

Bangladeshis form the third largest expatriate group in the UAE, after Pakistanis and Indians, according to the UAE foreign ministry.

The oil-rich Gulf state bans unauthorised protests and prohibits criticism of rulers or speech that is deemed to create or encourage social unrest.

Defamation, as well as verbal and written insults, whether published or made in private, are punishable by law.

The country's penal code also criminalises offending foreign states or jeopardising ties with them.

The ruling comes weeks after Emirati authorities handed life sentences to 43 Emiratis for "terrorist" links after a mass trial heavily criticised by UN experts and rights groups.

Ten others were jailed for 10 to 15 years on similar charges.

Government critics and human rights activists were among the 84 defendants brought before the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal, most of whom have been in jail since a similar trial of 94 people in 2013, according to groups say.

Commenting on the Bangladeshi case, Amnesty International's UAE researcher Devin Kenney said it was "the second mass trial in the UAE this month, with dozens of people sentenced to huge prison terms literally overnight, on charges involving no element of violence".

In a statement to AFP, Kenney said the UAE's "extreme reaction to the mere existence of a public protest on Emirati soil shows that the state places great priority on suppressing any manifestation of dissent in the country."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)