Blogger on trial in UAE for insulting clan rulers

A pro-democracy blogger, a university lecturer and three others denied charges yesterday of insulting the United Arab Emirates' rulers, in a case gauging the Gulf state's fears of citizen revolts sweeping the region.

The United Arab Emirates, a leading world oil producer, has not seen the kind of mass anti-government protests that have hit neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

Yet with the economy dented by the 2008 global slowdown and Dubai's 2009 debt crisis, and moves afoot to increase the number of those eligible for the parliament-style Federal National Council (FNC), the UAE's political sands may be shifting.

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The five men appearing at an Abu Dhabi court are accused of "acts that threaten state security and public order", and "insulting the president, vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi", the state news agency said.

One defendant is blogger and rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, from Ras al-Khaimah, one of the UAE's poorer emirates. He had joined a petition demanding wider political representation and more powers for the FNC.

Another is Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France's Sorbonne University. He published an online article on Mansoor's forum, UAE Hewar, criticising Gulf states' attempt to buy off their populaces with increased social spending.

They and the three other alleged regime critics - Fahad Salim al-Shehhi, Hassan Ali al-Khamis and Ahmed Abdul-Khaleq - pled not guilty, their lawyers said yesterday. The trial will resume on 18 July. A crowd of some 100 men rallied to denounce the defendants.

"We are all Khalifa," they chanted, referring to UAE president Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, head of the Nahyan family that also rules Abu Dhabi.

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