DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)– Activists declared Saturday a day of protest at the COP28 summit in Dubai. The rules of the game in the tightly controlled United Arab Emirates at the website monitored by the United Nations imposed strict limitations on what protesters could say, where they could walk and what their signs could represent.
At times, the restrictions bordered on the absurd.
A small group of protesters opposing the detention of activists– one from Egypt and two from the UAE– was not allowed to display signs bearing their names. A late afternoon demonstration of around 500 people, the largest seen at the climate conference, could not go beyond the U.N.-controlled Blue Zone in this authoritarian nation. And their call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip could not mention the parties involved.
“It is a stunning level of censorship in a region that had been promised to have basic liberties protected like freedom of expression, assembly and association,” Joey Shea, a researcher at Human Rights Watch focused on the Emirates, told The Associated Press after their restricted demonstration.
Pro-Palestinian protesters who were demanding a cease-fire and climate justice were told they could not say “from the river to the sea,” a slogan restricted by the U.N. throughout the days of COP28.
In the aftermath of a violent Hamas attack on Israel in October and the subsequent Israeli bombing and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, that expression has been used at pro-Palestinian rallies to call for a single state on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Some Jews hear a clear need for Israel’s destruction in the call
Protesters circumvented rules prohibiting national flags by instead wearing keffiyeh headscarves and holding signs depicting watermelons to show their support for the Palestinians.
Protester Dylan Hamilton of Scotland said it remained important for demonstrators to voice their concerns, even if they felt like a cacophony of issues ranging from climate change, the war or Indigenous rights.
“It’s important to remind negotiators what they are negotiating about,” Hamilton said. “It’s trying to remind people to respect people you’ll never meet.”
Despite the restrictions, activists advocating for a cease-fire in Gaza called the action historic due to its size.
“I don’t want to look back one day when a Palestinian can’t remember what their history and their culture used to look like, because that’s exactly what happened to us in Mexico,” climate activist Isavela Lopez said. “I’m here to say to end with the colonial powers and with the white supremacy.”
Usually, COP summits see mass protests of tens of thousands of people outside of the Blue Zone. Given the UAE’s regulations, the only location where activists can protest is inside that U.N.-controlled areawhich has its own strict limitations on speech.
