United Arab Emirates
Foreign Nationals and the Death Penalty
Death Penalty Overview
The United Arab Emirates retains the use of
capital punishment for a range of offences,
including murder, terrorism-related offences,
rape, arson resulting in death, drug
traf cking, drug possession, apostasy,
sodomy, homosexuality, adultery, treason,
espionage and revealing defence secrets.
The primary method of execution is by ring
squad. Amnesty International reported that
the UAE executed at least one person in
2021 (after no executions were recorded
since 2017), however little is known of this
execution. Nine death sentences were also
recorded in 2021. Although data on
executions is limited, it is known that courts
continue to sentence people to death, a
disproportionate number of those sentenced
being foreign nationals.
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Under Islamic Shari’a law, stoning to death is
also stipulated as a legal punishment for acts
such as adultery, yet this sentence is
generally not carried out and no executions
by stoning are recorded. In 2006,
Bangladeshi national Shanin ‘Abdul Rahman
was sentenced to death by stoning by a
Shari’a court for committing adultery.
However his sentence was commuted on
appeal to one year’s imprisonment and
deportation.
The Al-Awir Central Prison in Dubai, where some
foreign nationals are held
Foreign Nationals
Foreign nationals make up around 88% of
UAE’s population, with 59.4% of non-UAE
nationals hailing from South Asian countries
(38.2% are Indian, 9.5% Bangladeshi and
9.4% Pakistani), 10.2% from Egypt and 6.1%
from the Philippines. Since 1994, of the 20