Dubai Expo 2020 attempt to shield UAE rights abuses, says HRW

Rights group says event is an attempt by the UAE to ‘whitewash its image’ and obscure crackdowns on dissent, freedom of expression. A prominent human rights group has condemned the United Arab Emirates Dubai Expo 2020 as an attempt to gloss over rights abuses committed by the Gulf country. The expo, which has been billed as the Middle East’s first ever world fair and opens on Friday, is part of a decades-long campaign by the UAE to “whitewash its image and obscure its abuses”, Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Expo 2020 is yet another opportunity for the UAE to falsely present itself on the world stage as open, tolerant, and rights-respecting while shutting down the space for politics, public discourse, and activism,” Page said. The organisation specifically highlighted allegations that the UAE “carried out a sustained assault on freedom of expression and association, arresting and prosecuting hundreds of independent lawyers, judges, teachers, students, and activists, and shutting down key civil society associations and the offices of foreign organizations, effectively crushing any space for dissent”.