"Qaradawi was arrested by Lebanese authorities after he returned from Syria in December 2024, where he went to celebrate the fall of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. While there, he posted a video on social media in which he criticised the Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi governments and said he hoped they would suffer the same fate as the Assad regime."
"It was the UAE, however, not Egypt, that managed to convince Lebanon to arrest Qaradawi after his video in Syria, under charges of fake news and disturbing public security. It circulated an arrest warrant for the dissident through the Arab Interior Ministers Council, a little known transnational organisation that fosters security cooperation between Arab states. Lebanese authorities, under the previous government led by the former prime minister Najib Mikati, complied with the UAE's request."
"It extradited Qaradawi to the UAE on 8 January, despite the fact that he was neither a citizen of the UAE nor of Lebanon. The brazenness of his arrest, which showed that a person could be spirited away to a country where they were not a citizen because of a video they posted on social media, has created a chilling precedent for freedom of expression in the Middle"
Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian-Turkish poet and activist, was arrested by Lebanese authorities after returning from Syria in December 2024. He posted a video in Syria criticizing the Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi governments and expressing hope they would share Assad's fate. The UAE obtained an arrest warrant and convinced Lebanon to detain him on charges of fake news and disturbing public security, circulating the warrant through the Arab Interior Ministers Council. Lebanese authorities under the previous government led by Najib Mikati complied and extradited Qaradawi to the UAE on 8 January. Qaradawi was neither a UAE nor Lebanese citizen. The arrest sets a chilling precedent for freedom of expression.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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