Alaa Al-Siddiq is Gone, but her Thoughts will Stay
We, the family of the “Together for Justice” organization, offer our deepest condolences to the family of the Emirati activist and colleague “Alaa Al-Siddiq”, who lost her life on Saturday, June 19, in a tragic traffic accident in the UK, London. May she rest in peace.
Alaa was one of the most prominent freedom fighters and a bold human rights defender. She was forced to leave UAE, her homeland, because of the injustice and persecution that her family suffered from. She did all she can to free her country from oppression through peaceful means to achieve democracy in the country.
Alaa held the position of Executive Director of the ALQST Organization for Human Rights, which is concerned with the prisoners of conscience in the Arab Gulf states. She devoted her life to be the voice of those detainees, including her father, Emirati preacher Mohamed Abdul Razzaq Al-Siddiq, who was arrested in 2012 after being accused of plotting a coup, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a trial that Alaa described as sham and unfair.
Her father was subjected to torture and deprivation of visitation for long periods. The authorities also revoked the citizenship of him and his children, as part of the collective punishment policy pursued by the Emirati regime to abuse its opponents and their families.
Alaa has long criticized the continuous restrictions on freedoms in the UAE, which she said is witnessing a collapse in the field of freedoms and expression of opinion, especially with the adoption of the Electronic Crimes Law issued nine years ago, which made the expression of opinion and peaceful criticism through social media a charge punishable by law.
The editor-in-chief of the Qatari newspaper, Al-Arab, Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Athba said that the woman whom Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani spoke about in January 2018, and caused a dispute with the UAE in 2015 is Alaa Al-Siddiq, wife of Emirati dissident Abdul Rahman Bagbir.
The Qatari Foreign Minister had revealed in his statements at that time that an Emirati-Qatari dispute began in 2015 when Qatar refused to extradite the wife of an Emirati opponent, and said in an interview with Qatar TV, that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed sent an envoy to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to hand them over the lady, but the Emir refused their request, as she was not wanted for a criminal offense.
Alaa left our world before she fulfilled her wish to visit her father or hear his voice, which she has been deprived of since 2013. She left before returning to a free homeland, free from oppression and dictatorship.
With great sadness and sorrow, we bid you farewell, O Alaa, and we hope that you are in a better place where there is no injustice or slander, and we pledge to you to complete the continue your struggle so that every person in the Arab world enjoy his rights and until all prisoners of conscience are freed.
