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The Emirates Centre for Human Rights (ECHR) is a British-based non-governmental organisation that promotes the defence of human rights in the United Arab Emirates. [1] The ECHR also engages in advocacy to “build strong relationships with media, parliaments and other relevant organisations outside the UAE” and has organised three meetings in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in July 2012, March and July 2013. [1]
According to human rights organizations, the government of the U.A.E violates a number of fundamental human rights. The UAE does not have democratically elected institutions and citizens do not have the right to change their government or to form political parties. There are reports of forced disappearances in the UAE, many foreign nationals and Emirati citizens have been abducted by the UAE government and illegally detained and tortured in undisclosed locations. In numerous instances, the UAE government has tortured people in custody . and has denied their citizens the right to a speedy trial and access to counsel during official investigations.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. Officially, the full name of the house is the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House.
The ECHR's website was originally registered to Malath Skahir, a former director of the Cordoba Foundation and the wife of Anas Altikriti, the current Cordoba Foundation chief executive and the key political lobbyist for the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain. [2] Former ECHR Director Rori Donaghy says that Altikriti helped to set up the ECHR but now has nothing to do with it. [2] As of 2015, Anas Mekdad is the director. [3]
The Cordoba Foundation is a UK-based research and advisory group with the stated aim of “bridging the gap of understanding between the Muslim World and the West”. The group has been criticized for its links to organizations suspected of terrorist activities, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
Anas Altikriti is the CEO and Founder of The Cordoba Foundation, The Cordoba Foundation describes its aim as “bridging the gap of understanding between the Muslim World and the West”. Anas Altikriti himself is a hostage negotiator, who has successfully negotiated the release of 18 hostages from various conflict zones around the world, between November 2005 and October 2015.
The Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. The organization gained supporters throughout the Arab world and influenced other Islamist groups such as Hamas with its "model of political activism combined with Islamic charity work", and in 2012 sponsored the elected political party in Egypt after the January Revolution in 2011. However, it faced periodic government crackdowns for alleged terrorist activities, and as of 2015 is considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Current ECHR Director Anas Mekdad has made comments in favor of suicide bombings and is an outspoken supporter of Hamas. According to The Telegraph, "He is the founder of AlMakeen Network, a UK-based website which also publishes articles praising the Brotherhood, Hamas and suicide bombings." [4]
The organisation has been quoted in the BBC, [5] Huffington Post, [6] and Wall Street Journal. [7]
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London, and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included.
