Lebanon to deport detained son of late Muslim Brotherhood leader to UAE

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s cabinet voted Tuesday to deport to the United Arab Emirates an Egyptian activist and poet detained by Lebanese security forces after crossing the porous border from Syria last month. Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi, who is an outspoken critic of Egypt’s government who had been residing in Turkey, reportedly visited Syria to join celebrations after the downfall of President Bashar Assad in a lightning insurgent offensive headed by the Islamist group Hayat Tahriri al-Sham. Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday that while visiting Damascus in December, al-Qaradawi had “filmed himself walking around the Umayyad Mosque and criticizing the authorities of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.” “According to his family and lawyers, this short clip widely shared on social media triggered his arrest,” the international human rights group said. Sara Hashash, the human rights group’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said that if extradited to Egypt al-Qaradawi would face a “risk of enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment,” and “he would also be at risk of arbitrary detention and other human rights violations if he is returned to the UAE.” “Forcibly extraditing him to a country where he is likely to face persecution would be a flagrant breach of the principle of non-refoulement under international law,” she said.