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Many
Indians are rotting in illegal confinement
in the Al-Wathba Prison, United Arab
Emirates. Shali Ittaman recounts the story
in the words of those Released.
Article published in THE SUNDAY PIONEER,
May 17, 1998 as reported by Shali Ittaman.
Ex-inmates
of the Al Wathba Central prison have some
startling stories to relate. They say that
the Jail in Abu-Dhabi has 10 clandestine
blocks where nearly 2,000 people from the
Third World countries are being held like
medieval slaves, mostly for crimes they
had never committed. Many of them are
Indians. Some of them are women and some
teenage boys. Almost all of them have been
detenues for years.
George Titus Valliazam, a banker from
Kerala, has been a prisoner in Al Wathba
since 1986. For 12 years he has shared
with nine other prisoners of a 10 by
10-nondescript cell. The block where his
cell is located has 200 prisoners who are
forced to live in inhuman conditions with
rudimentary toilets and faulty plumbing.
Valliazam eats two coarse meals a day,
wears a gunny jail jersey (rarely gets a
change), does the laundry, sweeps the
floor, cleans clogged toilets - and yet
gets routinely flogged. Every night, he
retires to his unventilated cell to sleep
on the scorching floor. His wife and
daughters, whom he left behind in Kerala.
for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), still
wait for him. They know he is languishing
in Al Wathba but it is the truth they
haven't told their neighbours.
Titus was arrested and sentenced to three
years Imprisonment for allegedly
defrauding the UAE Exchange, a high-profit
company in Abu Dhabi in which he was a
partner. But once you go behind the walls
of Wathba you never know when you will
come out, court orders notwithstanding.
Take the instance of Feorencio V Paruli.
who hails from the Philippines. The UAE's
Shariah Court declared him innocent in
April 1995, but he hasn't known freedom
three years after incarceration. In a
letter to his friend, Paruli wrote
"There is no evidence at all, not a
single one...I'm still waiting for the
golden paper from the diwan (for the
release). My life is wasting and my family
is in great distress."
Nurulla Jan from Pakistan was falsely
implicated in a drug offence and banished
to Al Watbba in 1992. He continues to
languish there despite being absolved and
ordered to be set free by two courts in
Abu Dhabi a month after his arrest.
Such examples abound in AI Wathba. These
are prisoners whom the Abu Dhabi police
try to keep out of sight of the outside
world. Visiting dignitaries and human
rights inspectors are led through prison
corridors where there is discipline and
respect for law. But not many get to know
what happens behind the walls, or after
they leave the premises.
Such is the secrecy that even letters from
the prisoners are censured by jail
officials. (Except the letters which are
occasionally smuggled out.) Relatives and
friends who come calling are also put
through processes, which are intimidating
and discouraging. Burly cops take turns to
log close details. including work, address
and names of sponsors of all visitors
passing through the gates. In the
visitors' gallery too, they have to jostle
with a sea of humanity. duck a posse of
guards and try to get the interns to
describe what transpires in the prison
cells before time out is called.
Only the hardiest and the most determined
of the visitors put to peril liberty, job
and family to beat the system and return
repeatedly to learn more about the
goings-on in Al Wathba and tell the world
about them.
However, there are a few foreigners in
high places in the UAE, including heads of
missions, who have a stockpile of
information on the barred cells. Over the
years they have been flooded with
petitions and letters from well wishers
and relatives of the interns and even some
released detenues, to intervene and end
the plight of the prisoners. But owing to
protocol limitations and economic
compulsions, most of them have chosen
silence. This is especially true of
ambassadors from the Third World.
Recently, when this reporter met Mrs.
George Titus in Ernakulam. she recounted
that she had written several letters to
the Indian Ambassador in Abu Dhabi and
even met him once to seek help to secure
her husband's release. But he cut his
excuses and parted ways.
There are others who corroborate her
account. Mohan Venghad, a one-time intern
at Al Wathba, said that during his years
in jail many of his well-wishers had seen
the ambassador to request for his
intervention Venghad had himself secretly
couriered a letter to the ambassador from
the jail, detailing his and his fellow
prisoners' condition. But nothing came of
it, he spent another nine years in illegal
detention.
He also says the embassy is merely an
agency to issue work permits and check
travel documents and the ambassador has
only time "to suck up to the UAE
officials, enjoy convivial feasts with
them and lavish in their bequests."
Venghad has many horrifying accounts about
prisoners who had shared berths with him
at one time or the other. He mentions Aziz
from Tamil Nadu, who, before his arrest
and execution, worked as a driver of a
rich and influential UAE citizen. He was
falsely implicated in a murder case by his
employer" and imprisoned for 12
years.
He was later ordered to be put before a
firing squad. The Indian embassy was kept
in the dark about the sentence until hours
before the execution, leaving virtually no
time for an appeal. After the execution,
his body was disposed off secretly, never
to be traced again. At that time, many in
the jail, including Venghad, suspected
that like the many ominous skeletons (of
Filipino nurses) found in the desert'
Aziz's bones too would be discovered one
day.
The Indian embassy washed off its hand by
saying that it was given no time to react
but the moor question remains: Do Indian
officials allow a few Indians to be
sacrificed because of economic
considerations?
This question is indeed equally applicable
to the other Third World countries such as
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the
Philippines.
However. Talmiz Ahmad, joint secretary in
the Ministry of External Affairs, says,
when compared to the sheer numbers of
Indians working in the UAE (about 1.2
million), such cases of miscarriages of
justice are very few and far between. He
says UAE is a very organized country and
is perhaps more just and humane than most
other countries in West Asia, where there
is such a vast inflow of immigrants.
Whereas Ahmad does not discuss individual
cases, he says that he has spoken to
Indian ambassador to UAE Muralidhara Menon
and the latter has denied having any
knowledge of such secrets jails. He also
says that Indian citizens in the UAE are
well-cared for by the embassy and, without
hampering foreign relations, it is doing
everything in its power to safeguard its
people's interests.
An Indian journalist (name withheld on
request) who had spent many years in the
UAE also says he knows nothing of the
existence of such jails. He says his
impressions of UAE society is vastly
different, He is full of admiration for
the system of law and justice existent
there. He says "an average individual
is far more safe in the UAE than he ever
would be in India." (The Pioneer
tried to get the UAE Interior Ministry's
to react to the story. But it failed to
respond to the fax.)
He says the Indian mission is working
under severe limitations. He says many
people who come to seek the help of the
mission there have no proper travel
papers. Because it is difficult to
distinguish the nationality of people of
the subcontinent, since they all look
alike and speak the same tongue, lot of
time is lost just in the exercise of
identification.
Nevertheless, a perusal of the exemplary
work done by the embassies of developed
countries deepens one's anguish and
remorse at the plight of the
"nationals of the have-not
countries".
Sample this. A British national committed
the un- pardonable offence of assaulting a
cop who caught him driving drunk.
The British embassy interceded on his
behalf and the policemen who brought him
to Al Wathba were severely reprimanded by
their officers. He was kept in jail for
exactly three hours.
Compare this with the case of a
l5-year-old Pakistani boy, who has been
behind bars for more than an year for
stealing an apple.
Jabir
Case - Justice on Trial
For PK Jabir, Abu Dhabi had come to be his
second home. In 18 years, he had set up
the Ramla Electro-Mechanical Est. and the
Premier General Contacting Est., two
companies doing good business. Jabir had
the reputation of being a rich man with a
kindly heart.
Everything seemed to be going well with
him until he met Hameed Saeed, a local
Arab, and signed an agreement to lease a
building. He had the least inkling then
that he was signing his own destruction
warrant.
That was on October 1, 1995. A year later,
almost to the day, Jabir was forced on a
plane to India with nothing but the grim
reminder of an interim spent in Al Wathba.
The man whose annual earning equalled Rs 5 crore
returned home in penury.
Jabir's trouble began when he signed a
contract for leasing 24 flats that Hameed
owned. The contract was worth Dirhams
504,000 (Rs 50.4 lakh). According to the
terms of the contract, the flats were to
be handed over once an advance was paid to
Hameed through cheque. The remaining
amount was to be made with- in six months.
After receiving the cheque, Hameed welshed
the deal by refusing to let out the flats.
Jabir then filed a civil suit and obtained
an injunction on October 24, 1995,
stopping Hameed from realizing the cheque.
Later, Hameed called in policemen to
coerce Jabir to withdraw the suit, hand
over the contract papers and give full
payment for the flats. When an adamant
Jabir refused, he was kicked and punched
in the face and groin and his fingers were
smashed with iron rods. His brother too
was beaten. The arrogant policemen.
however, committed the mistake of beating
them in full view of the public. This
proved to be their undoing. The brothers
were then taken to the Asma police station
where they were asked to sign
documents", withdrawing the charge
against Hameed. When they refused they
were abused and assaulted again. Jabir
fell unconscious; the brothers were
eventually taken to hospital for X-rays.
Later, they were brought back to the jail,
where they were held for 21 days. Then
they were shifted to the A1 Wathba Central
Prison, where they were kept in Block
Number 10 - one of the secret jails for a
week. Jabir was then released, though his
brother was detained. Later, when he went
to enquire about his brother, he was
rearrested and packed off to the same cell
to "join his brother."
In the meantime, a bail petition moved
through a friend came up for hearing in
the court on February 11, 1996. Several
witnesses came forward to testify in
Jabir's favour; a stockpile of evidence
left the court no option but to reject the
prosecution's counter-charge that Jabir
had assaulted the cops during an inquiry.
The court also granted them bail. Yet the
brothers were not released. Later. after
the final hearing of the case, the court
on May 19, 1996, gave a verdict absolving
Jabir of all charges and ordering the
police to free his brother and him
immediately. Yet their confinement
continued.
Their days in prison were miserable. All
their personal belongings were
confiscated. They were tonsured, given
tattered jail suits to wear and confined
to a cell with no beds, no ventilation and
mostly no power. Food was of bad quality
and inadequate. They were refused
permission to receive or see visitors or
write to relatives and friends. They were
also made to work without rest and whipped
and tortured for non-compliance.
On September 28, 1996, almost a year after
their ordeal began, the Head of Security
in the UAE Interior Ministry issued an
order of deportation and they were taken
out of prison and forced on a plane to
India.
Though the order was in some ways a
relief, it came too late and compensated
Jabir too little. First, the grim memories
of the days he spent as a prisoner were
never again to be erased. Second, far from
respecting the court verdict and
admonishing the police for excesses, the
Ministry ordered him to be deported after
freezing all his assets created over 18
years.
Though there was ample proof of his
innocence and of the atrocities committed
on him. the Indian embassy did not help.
The diplomats there sympathised with him
and did nothing.
Back in India, he wrote to the secretaries
of the External Affairs Ministry and the
Home Ministry and to the National Human
Rights Commission and later, filed a writ
in the Supreme Court to coax these
agencies to intercede on his behalf,
punish his persecutors in Abu Dhabi and
free his assets there.
On October 26, 1995. The Supreme Court
took cognizance of the case but suggested
that under the circumstances the High
Court was a more appropriate forum to deal
with the case.
Jabir then filed a petition in the High
Court seeking an order for a Government of
India intervention. The court gave the
Government two months to take necessary
steps. Unfortunately, the deadline is
over, but the Government has still not
moved.
Plush
offices and torture chambers
The Sunday Pioneer May 17, 1998
The Al Wathba Central Prison is a big
facility spread over many acres. There are
plush offices, reception area, staff
quarters and well-kept jails for all to
see.
However there is a compound which houses
the torture chamber, the detention center
and the execution arena. The compound is
enclosed by huge steel girders and high
walls and no outsider ever strays here.
In this compound there are 10 special
blocks meant to detain the Third World
country people and hard-core criminals.
The prisoners here have no rights and are
entirely at the mercy of policemen who
guard them.
There are about 21 small cells resembling
'concrete cages' in each block where about
200 prisoners are held.
Prisoners are brought to these cells are
tonsured, given two course jail suits, two
blankets, a plastic cup and a plate each.
All personal belongings, including
clothes, are confiscated at the entrance
and no other stationery is provided.
Hard-core criminals - even those against
whom there are Black Warrants are given a
better deal. They get toothbrushes, paper
and pen. "Indian, Bangladeshi and
Pakistani dogs." As the other
detenues are called by the policemen, are
never granted such luxuries. And only they
are called for cleaning duties.
In the morning prisoners get a glass of
tea, a slice of bread with a trickle of
jam or a film of cheese. At lunch they are
provided rice with a piece of camel meat.
Dinner at 8'O clock is a slice of bread,
dal (lentil) and a glass of black tea.
Prisoners in each block have six latrines
and three bathrooms to use. Because the
taps often run dry and the toilets are
clogged most of the time, 200 prisoners
more or less end up using one or two
latrines.
Prisoners are regularly flogged on one
pretext or the other and those resorting
to hunger strikes are administered 10
"major flogs".
Medical facility too are extended to Arabs
only. Other detenues who fall sick are
left untreated. Power supply to the cells
is controlled by guards on sentry duty.
For weeks on end they turn off the power,
leaving the prisoners to suffer in
darkness.
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