Ahmed Mansoor is an engineer, poet, writer, human rights defender and father of four from the United Arab Emirates. He is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence after being unfairly convicted in May 2018 of the offence of “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols including its leaders” in connection with his peaceful human rights activism, including posts on social media. He is a prisoner of conscience.
He is being held in solitary confinement in an isolation ward in Al-Sadr prison in Abu Dhabi in dire conditions. Since his arrest on 20 March 2017, he has only been permitted to leave his small cell for a handful of family visits, and only once allowed outside for fresh air in the prison’s exercise yard. In protest, he has been on two separate hunger strikes which have seriously damaged his health.
By detaining Mansoor in such appalling conditions, the UAE authorities are in violation of their obligations under the Convention Against Torture and Principle 6 of the Body of Principles, as well as Article 2 of the UAE’s Code of Criminal Procedure.
In Ahmed Mansoor's own powerful words: Time does not gore my wounds anymore For I have no wound and there is no such thing as time And no consolation. -------------------------------------------- What are all those stars for? And the night And the clouds And the sky erected like a tent in the desert. In a place like this Everything is Luxury. -------------------------------------------- Boredom How much time has passed, Oh clock, And you are ticking ?! My heart, Is beating as well, But the tear had dried And the bullet, Is still, Penetrating. -------------------------------------------- Final Choice I have no other means now but a tight-lipped silence in the square and through corridors Since I have tried everything screams, chants, signboards obstructing roads and lying on the ground in front of the queues Cutting through the procession with eggs, tomatoes, and blazing tires Hurling burning bottles and stones Stripped naked in front of the public Carving statements in the flesh Walking masked in front of cameras Dressed in shackles Tied and chained to garden fences Swallowing rusty razor blades and splintered glass Hacking of fingers with a machete and hanging myself from the lampposts Dousing the body with kerosene and setting it aflame I have tried all this, but you didn’t even turn to look This time, I swear I won’t utter a word, or move I will stay the way I am until you turn to look or until I am petrified -------------------------------------------- Love I fell in love with you without any regret directed at you or the grave I fell in love with you but I I forgot the shoes in the dream and the keys in the coffin.
Poetry For Social Justice 