(Beirut) – A South Sudanese political commentator remains in prison in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) without charge a year after his arrest, Human Rights Watch said today. Emirati authorities have not disclosed the legal basis for the arrest of the commentator, Samuel Peter Oyay, to his family.
Oyay fled South Sudan in 2014, fearing for his safety. He moved to the UAE and had been running a private business there. While in the UAE, Oyay had written regularly for independent South Sudan-focused platforms, accusing its government of corruption that benefits the elite. The UAE and South Sudan have strengthened their bilateral relations in recent years. In 2025, President Salva Kiir visited the UAE at least three times.
“The UAE government’s zero-tolerance policy toward peaceful criticism is increasingly targeting critics of Abu Dhabi’s foreign allies who live in the UAE,” said Joey Shea, senior United Arab Emirates researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Emirati authorities should immediately release Samuel Oyay, who has been held for a year without charge.”
In the last article published before his detention, on September 21, 2025, Oyay criticized the trial of Riek Machar, the suspended first vice president and leader of the main opposition party, as a ploy by President Kiir to weaken a rival rather than deliver justice. On September 22, 2026, the president dissolved the transitional government, most likely to pave the way for elections, while Machar and other key opposition figures’ trial was ongoing.
On September 30, 2025, Emirati security forces in civilian clothes arrested Oyay in front of his four children at their home in Dubai after searching his home for two hours, an informed source told Human Rights Watch. During Oyay’s arrest, Emirati security forces did not show his family a warrant, or inform him of the charges or the legal basis for his arrest, the source said.
UAE authorities allowed Oyay to call his family two weeks later, the source said, but did not disclose his whereabouts to his relatives for five months. On February 24, 2026, Oyay told the informed source that he was being held in al-Wathba prison. He was moved to another prison on March 3, the source said.
Prison authorities allow Oyay one short phone call per week. Oyay’s family received a call from UAE authorities on March 2 authorizing a visit for March 3, but when they tried to visit him, the authorities told them that he had been moved to another prison that day, the source said. Emirati authorities called the family again on July 1 to schedule a visit for July 8, when they were finally able to visit, and have not been able to visit since.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented that South Sudanese critics in exile have been disappeared or forcefully returned with support of the South Sudan government.
In April 2024, a UAE company signed a €12 billion (US$12.9 billion) oil-for-cash deal with South Sudan. Most of South Sudan’s crude is refined in Fujairah, one of the UAE’s seven emirates. But South Sudan’s oil exports have been significantly impacted by the war in neighboring Sudan.
Human Rights Watch has documented the UAE’s longstanding record of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, denial of medical care, prolonged solitary confinement, and continued detention beyond completed sentences.
Article 48 of the UAE’s criminal law of procedure states that detainees should be taken before the public prosecutor within 48 hours. The UAE’s 2003 State Security Apparatus Law, however, gives state security officers wide powers to hold detainees for lengthy periods without any judicial scrutiny.
Article 28 of the state security law, read in conjunction with article 14, allows the head of the state security apparatus to detain a person for 106 days “if he has sufficient reasonable causes to make him believe” that the person is involved in, among other things, “activities that undermine the state … or jeopardize national unity,” “activities deemed harmful to the economy,” or anything that “could undermine, weaken the position of, stir animosity against or undermine trust in the State.”
The state security apparatus law inherently violates international human rights law including article 14(5) of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which states that “anyone arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release.” The UAE ratified the Arab Charter in 2008.
The UAE should ensure that in its law and practice, every detainee is taken within 48 hours before an independent judge to consider the legality and necessity of their detention and whether they should be immediately released, Human Rights Watch said.
“The UAE’s continued detention of Oyay shows authorities’ relentless attack on human rights against its own citizens and residents who make the UAE their home,” Shea said. “The UAE isn't content with silencing their own critics but is also doing the same for its allies.”
