UN must investigate death of UAE poet and writer Habib al-Sayegh, advocacy group says

New book claims Sayegh was taken from his home by Emirati security forces and tortured to death in 2019 Emirati poet and writer Habib al-Sayegh, right, receives an honourary award from Ali Mohamed Al Khouri, the then-director general of the Emirates Identity Authority, on 24 January 2012 (UAE Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs, and Port Security/Screengrab) Published date: 30 October 2026 19:31 GMT | Last update: 6 sec ago A US-based rights group is calling on the United Nations to investigate what it says was the suspicious death of an award-winning Emirati poet and writer in 2019, based on disclosures in a book published last week. That book, Princes and Thieves by Matthew Cole, said that 64-year-old Habib al-Sayegh, who was the chairman of the board of directors of the Emirates Writers and Writers Union, as well as secretary-general of the General Union of Arab Writers, was kidnapped from his home in the United Arab Emirates, taken away to a prison and tortured to death. Interrogators allegedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and struck him repeatedly with a sharp metal object. "Injuries of that kind leave marks that a forensic examination of the remains could detect," Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) said on Thursday. "Only an independent investigation can answer" the many questions surrounding his fate, it added. Sayegh was allegedly left to die sometime between 16-19 August 2019. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Cole's book claimed that Emirati officials held the body for more than a day and barred Sayegh's family from viewing it, before later moving his body from the cemetery in Abu Dhabi, where he was buried, to an unmarked desert grave, so that his family could not pray there. "We ask you to press the UAE for Al Sayegh’s death certificate, the recorded cause of death, any detention records and its response to the book’s allegations, and to allow his family and an independent forensic expert to confirm the location and condition of his grave," Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director for Dawn, wrote in a letter to three UN special rapporteurs on Thursday. "We ask you to share your findings with the Human Rights Council and to seek accountability for any violations of international law you identify." Dawn was founded by the late Middle East Eye columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, who himself was killed by his own government, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, a year before Sayegh's death. 'Autocratic capture': Rights groups say UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh too dangerous to lead UN Read More » Despite a documented pattern of disappearing dissidents, the UAE is a party to the Convention against Torture, Jarrar noted in the letter. Sayegh, who had received an honourary award from the state for his contributions to its national identity in 2012, was editor-in-chief of the newspaper Al Khaleej. Writing in a column on 11 August 2019, he described Israel as "a real and natural enemy" and asked: “Who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?” Nine days later, the state news agency announced his death without ever revealing the cause. Over a year later, the UAE officially normalised relations with Israel at a signing ceremony at the White House, overseen by US President Donald Trump in his first term. Since then, despite the UN calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide, Abu Dhabi and Israel have only grown closer, particularly as the fallout from the US-Israeli war on Iran has driven regional allies to seek defence partnerships. Since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, the UAE has been an outlier of sorts among Arab states. When asked just last year about Trump’s Gaza "Riviera plan" that most interpreted as a call for ethnic cleansing, the UAE ambassador to the US said on the record that Abu Dhabi saw no "alternative" to it. MEE also previously revealed that the UAE has been lobbying the US against an Arab League plan for Gaza and was supportive of Israel displacing Palestinians there to Egypt. Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.