Increasing popular anger mixed with feelings of disappointment at the way another Arab state is treating Egyptians formed the background to protests in front of the United Arab Emirates embassy in Giza this week. With a heavy security presence around the embassy, the second round of protests was held to express the widespread popular fury at the detention of Egyptians in Abu Dhabi in the absence of clear charges against them and the perceived failure of Egyptian officials to take steps to end their ordeal. The protesters, who included the families and friends of the detainees together with representative of various professional syndicates, held up placards calling for the immediate release of the Egyptians detained in the UAE. They chanted slogans like “wake up Dubai”, “raise your head high, you are Egyptian”, and “an Egyptian is a free man and will never be humiliated.” “We are not only defending the rights of a group of detainees, but also the dignity of all Egyptian citizens. The people are not our only concern. We are also concerned about the principle,” said Khaled Ghania, a relative of one of the detainees. Many of the protesters said the detentions were linked to the presence of former Egyptian presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik and members of the now-disbanded Egyptian state security and symbols of the former Mubarak regime in UAE. Mahmoud Abul-Beshri, a pensioner who worked in the UAE for 40 years, said that Egyptians would never forget the generosity of Sheikh Zayed Al-Nahyan, the father of the current president of the UAE. However, he asked who was now governing the UAE. “Is it [Dahi] Khalfan [the chief of the Dubai police], Shafik, or the former members of Egyptian state security that now live in the Emirates?” “Where is Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the president of the country, or Dubai ruler Sheikh Rashed Al-Maktoum,” he asked. Abul-Beshri is not related to any of the detainees, but he felt it was his duty to support them and to take part in the protests. Another relative of one of the detainees who preferred not to give her name said that the Egyptians had been detained because Shafik was on UAE territory. The protests concluded in a press conference at which representatives of the doctors, engineers and teachers syndicates participated, along with representatives of the Supreme Press Council. All pressed for the immediate release of the detainees, but representatives of the UAE embassy declined to meet a delegation from the syndicates to discuss the issue. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry organised a visit for a delegation from the Lawyers Syndicate to discuss the issue with Emirati officials in Dubai, along with Ali Al-Esheri, assistant foreign minister for expatriate affairs. The outcome of the meeting will be disclosed soon. Another meeting was held for the families of the detainees with the Egyptian consul in Dubai last week. However, not a single family member attended the meeting, according to Ahmed Abdallah, the son of one of the detained Egyptians. “I have not heard about any outcome of the meeting. Besides, most of the detainees' families live in Egypt” and do not want to travel to Dubai, he told Al-Ahram Weekly. Abdallah has formed an association to defend the rights of the detainees with another eight detainee family members. This week's protests were not the first to have taken place over the issue. Dozens of Egyptians also staged a protest earlier this month demanding the release of the detainees. The families have also taken other measures to keep their case in the public eye. They organised a press conference at the Press Syndicate, for example, in which they demanded that the accusations against the detainees be disclosed and called for their immediate release. The Press Syndicate also called upon the Egyptian authorities to investigate the reasons behind the detention of Ahmed Gaafar, an Egyptian journalist who runs a private media centre in Dubai. Protests were organised earlier by the freedom committee of the Doctors Syndicate in Cairo, asking President Mohamed Morsi, the Arab League, the National Council for Human Rights, the Foreign Ministry and the Shura Council to intervene to secure the release of the detained Egyptians. A top-level political delegation was dispatched to the UAE earlier this month in order to negotiate the release of detainees. However, the delegation, which included top presidential adviser Essam Haddad and General Intelligence Chief Mohamed Shehata, failed to secure their release. The Emirati officials apparently told the delegation they would let justice take its course. According to the UAE government, the Egyptians, arrested in late December, are accused of leading an expatriate Muslim Brotherhood cell in the country that had gathered sensitive military information and plotted against national security. According to the families of the detainees, if they are not released other measures will be considered. “We will not be content with protests. We may resort to demanding the closure of the UAE embassy,” said the father of one of the detainees. “This protest is just the beginning. We will hold further protests and very soon Emirati nationals who are ashamed of the actions of their governments will join us if officials shut their ears to our demands,” Ghania said Relations between Egypt and the UAE deteriorated when Dubai Police Chief Khalfan attacked the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, accusing it of plotting to topple the Gulf monarchies. His latest attack came last week, when he accused the Brotherhood of trying to implement “political schemes” in the Gulf and planning “fraud operations” to acquire Gulf currencies to solve Egypt's economic crisis. Regarding the Egyptians arrested in the UAE, Khalfan described them as “tax collectors” who professionally steal money. In earlier attacks, Khalfan described the election of Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt as “an unfortunate choice”. The comment that sparked the most anger was when he wrote on his twitter account that Morsi would “kiss the hands of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques [the king of Saudi Arabia], just as [Brotherhood founder] Hassan Al-Banna did with king Abdel-Aziz.” The tweet was later removed from his account. Khalfan's comments reflect a worry that the rise of the Islamists to power in the wake of the Arab Spring could stir up dissent in Gulf countries. Ahmed, a professional who lives and works in Abu Dhabi, said that Emirati officials had failed to present real evidence against the detainees. “The arrests showed their concern about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other Arab states. As for Khalfan's statements, they reflect a genuine, and possibly personal, hatred of the Brotherhood,” he told the Weekly. Manal Rateb, another professional who has lived for decades in Dubai, said that from a legal point of view the detainees had violated UAE law by promoting their political views, which were considered as opposing the regime. She described Khalfan as a professional and well-trained head of police with a high sense of any threat to his country. “He is fully aware of the essence of the Muslim Brotherhood and he knows that the group's agenda only serves its own purposes,” she said.
