Why UAE, the autocratic COP28 host, has to allow limited protests at summit

Demonstrators participate in a protest against the Israel-Hamas war during the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Participants at the United Nations’ COP28 climate talks Sunday found themselves greeted by the rarest sights in the United Arab Emirates — public protests.

From the largest demonstration seen in the UAE since the start of the raging Israel-Hamas war to environmental issues, activists allowed into the UAE can protest under strict guidelines in this autocratic nation inside the summit.

Meanwhile, human rights researchers from organizations long banned by the country have also been let in, providing them some the opportunity for the first time in about a decade to offer criticism — though many acknowledge it may see them never allowed back in the country.

“One of our major issues with COP28 is the fact that the UAE government is using this to burnish its image internationally and the fact that limited protests are allowed … is a good thing,” said Joey Shea, now on her first trip to the Emirates as a researcher focused on the country at Human Rights Watch. “But at the end of the day, it helps to create this very false image that the UAE does have respect for rights when, in fact, it does not.”

The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms led by Abu Dhabi’s ruler, bans political parties and labor unions. All power rests in each emirate’s hereditary ruler. Broad laws tightly restrict speech, and nearly all major local media are either state-owned or state-affiliated outlets.

Laws also criminalize the very few protests that take place by foreign laborers. The Emirates’ overall population of more than 9.2 million people is only 10% Emirati. The rest are expatriates, many low-paid laborers seeking to send money back home to their families.

Many avoid saying anything as they see their livelihoods at risk for speaking up as their visas and residencies remain tied to their employers. The UAE’s diplomatic ties to Israel, reached in 2020, also make protesting on behalf of the Palestinians that much more fraught.

However, the U.N. and the UAE agreed before COP28 that free expression would be allowed. Activists described a process of seeking approvals from organizers for their demonstrations. U.N. rules at the summit have seen demonstrators avoid waving national flags or specifically calling out countries.

But Sunday afternoon, over 100 people gathered as part of a solidarity protest on behalf of the Palestinians, only a short distance from Israel’s pavilion at Dubai’s Expo City. The same number of onlookers and journalists watched as they chanted, read the names of the dead, and held their fists up to the sky. Some cried as they listened.

A man holds a Palestinian flag at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Moments later, authorities asked him not to hold the flag, per regulations on protests. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Israeli security personnel watched from a distance. That morning, they briefly had argued over another smaller protest with United Nations police on hand guarding the Blue Zone, an area overseen by the U.N. where the negotiations take place.

Criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war has peppered much of the summit from world leaders, as well as activists who can be seen through the site wearing the traditional checkered keffiyeh, or scarf, associated with the Palestinians. However, unlike other COP summits, there haven’t been marches of tens of thousands outside the venue.

Babawale Obayanju, an activist with the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice from Benin City, Nigeria, taking part in Sunday’s protests, told the AP that it was important to highlight the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip as “it’s time for the world to take action” on that and the environment.

“Every opportunity we have, every arena of this struggle, is one we must embrace,” Obayaju said. “And the COP is in that arena of struggle.”

The loosened rules for COP28 also appear to have extended to allowing in people the Emiratis otherwise may not have.

About a decade ago, as the Arab Spring protests wound down, the UAE cracked down on Islamists and dissidents in the country. It also began blocking organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch from having their staff visit the nation.

They included human rights expert James Lynch, who worked for Amnesty. He was blocked from entering the country in 2015 to talk at a conference about migrant labor.

Alice McGown holds a sign reading “no more fossils” while dressed as a dugong at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP

Now the co-director of an organization called FairSquare, Lynch said he sought and didn’t receive a visa to attend COP28. After Emirati officials told The Financial Times nothing blocked him from coming, he took a nervous flight to Dubai with a copy of the article in his possession in case he was detained again at immigration. He was not and spoke to The Associated Press from the summit.

“It’s obviously a good thing that the UAE is letting people in with it with [various] voices and perspectives, including critical perspectives,” Lynch said. “But nevertheless, … it’s a nervy and sort of tense event in many ways.”

Shea’s colleagues at Human Rights Watch hadn’t been in the UAE in nine years after one of their colleagues was similarly detained trying to fly into the country. However, she said she didn’t plan to work outside the U.N.-administered Blue Zone for her safety and that of those speaking with her.

“From the moment that COP28 participants landed in Dubai, they were faced with thousands of security cameras, CCTV everywhere in public spaces, inside of buildings,” Shea said. “You were effectively tracked from the moment that you stepped down in this country, in addition to mass surveillance” through suspected cases of authorities hacking mobile phones.

For Alice McGown, a Los Angeles-based activist, the right to protest at COP meant dressing as a dugong, or seacow, holding a sign saying: “No More Fossils.” But while looking cartoonish, McGown offered serious criticism of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s plans to expand its offshore ultrasour gas operations into a protected area home to the dugong.

“It’s a little risky,” she said, as gawking onlookers stopped to photograph her. “Civil society does not have much of a place to speak out against these actions.”