PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
US FAMILY MAN FACING DEATH IN DUBAI ON HUNGER STRIKE
London, UK: 9 June June 2021
American businessman Zack Shahin, a former PepsiCo executive and father of two children has started a hunger strike in Dubai’s squalid Al Awir Central Jail. He has been unlawfully detained there for 14 years of a 47-year sentence on false accusations of financial crimes against the rulers of the tiny gulf dictatorship Dubai.
From Houston, Texas, Zack is believed to be the longest-serving American overseas white-collar prisoner in the world. To date, he has endured 14 years of false imprisonment in Dubai, where he has been subjected to torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, amongst other grave human rights abuses.
In confirming his hunger strike to the US Consulate General in Dubai’s, Charles McClellan, Zack wrote, setting out his decision to take the ultimate step in his fight for justice. The heart-wrenching letter states: “Post 14 years of injustice, ill-treatment, mental and physical torture and relentless fight, I have finally accepted that I will never leave this place standing on my feet nor be allowed to live in peace. I have endured all the physical pain and mental suffering that I was able to. With no foreseen end to this ongoing battle, I have commenced a hunger strike and suspended all medicine intake, water suspension to follow. “
Zack was held in arbitrary detention for 9 years until 2016. After growing international pressure, including the intervention of Hillary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, to seek his release, the Dubai courts sentenced Zack to 47 years for “breach of trust”. Zack is 57 and will die in jail.
Zack Shahin was the former CEO of Deyaar. The Dubai based real estate developer claims on its website to be “one of Dubai’s largest property developers … with landmark projects across the emirate.” Deyaar, a company owned by Dubai Islamic Bank, appointed Zack as CEO in 2004. Using his American Corporate skills, he turned the small privately-owned developer into a multi-billion-dollar public company, with Deyaar becoming the second-largest property company in the region.
Zack and his Texas-based family have instructed the British and USA based NGO, Detained International to advise them going forward in his fight for justice.
David Haigh, the founder of Detained International, who recently acted for HRH Princess Latifa, the daughter of the ruler of Dubai, said: “Zack, like many other international businessmen, has fallen victim to the vicious power politics of the region between competing local families and Sheikhs. Zack was made a scapegoat following a corruption investigation that saw his then-boss, the former Emirati Minister of Finance Dr Kharbash investigated for corruption by Mohammed Al Shaibani. Al Shaibani is the right-hand of the Dubai ruler Sheikh a Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
“Zac is one of many victims of injustice in the UAE, where powerful locals and the rulers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi seek expat scapegoats for the wrongdoing of Emiratis,
“Mohammed Al Shaibani and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum are names we hear all too often alongside allegations of injustice, torture and corruption. Only two weeks ago, together with leading international Human Rights Barrister Rodney Dixon QC, we filed an extensive “Magnitsky” sanction request against Mohammed Al Shaibani, the right hand of the Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Brigadier Al Shamali, the head of the Dubai Jail holding Zack for another high-profile client. We will shortly be filing another such request in Zack’s case in the UK, US and EU, along with other legal action and submission to the United Nations
Jordan Schneider, Director of US Operations at Detained International said: “As a fellow American, I am appalled that the U.S Consulate in Dubai has continually failed in its duty of care to Zack and his family to protect even his most basic human rights. Instead, while Zack suffered injustice, arbitrary detention and torture, the U.S. Consulate has stood idly by and allowed an unjust foreign dictatorship to abuse an American citizen and his family. Encouraged by the commitments of the new U.S. administration to protect human rights, we will now call on the Biden administration to step in and bring an end to the injustice Zack is suffering before it is too late.”
-Ends-
Notes to Editors:
The US Department of State 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices[footnoteRef:1]: United Arab Emirates. The executive summary first sentences state’s the following: Significant human rights issues included: torture in detention; arbitrary arrest and detention, including incommunicado detention, by government agents; political prisoners; government interference with privacy rights; undue restrictions on free expression and the press, including criminalization of libel, censorship, and Internet site blocking; substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedoms of expression and association; the inability of citizens to choose their government in free and fair elections; and criminalization of same-sex sexual activity, although no cases were publicly reported during the year. The government did not permit workers to freely associate, bargain collectively, or join independent unions and did not effectively prevent physical and sexual abuse of foreign domestic servants and other migrant workers. [1: https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/united-arab-emirates/ ]
Detail of the investigations, corruption and the witch hunt detailed in Wikileaks from US Government[footnoteRef:2]. [2: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08DUBAI358_a.html ]
An extract from Zack’s communique to the American Consulate in Dubai:
“Post 14 years of injustice, ill-treatment, mental and physical torture and relentless fight, I have finally accepted that I will never leave this place standing on my feet nor be allowed to live in peace. I have endured all the physical pain and mental suffering that I was able to. With no foreseen end to this ongoing battle, I have commenced a hunger strike and suspended all medicine intake, water suspension to follow. As it becomes required, I do not wish to be put on life support or force-fed. I would appreciate any intervention by the U.S. Mission in the U.A.E. to ensure my wishes are honored. In the event of death, I am to be repatriated to Houston, Texas. I have made my peace with my family, and they have painfully understood and accepted my position.”
About Detained International:
Detained international is a legal advocacy NGO that provides pro bono legal advocacy to victims of injustice, inequality and other human rights violations in Dubai, the wider United Arab Emirates, and the Middle East.
Detained International exists to help people in their hour of need, in many cases when they have been locked up far from home for no legitimate or even apparent reason and lack the support from obvious channels like their national embassy. Headquartered in London with an office in Washington DC, Detained International was founded in 2018 by UAE torture victim David Haigh, a prominent human rights lawyer and justice and equality advocate. Detained International has acted on many high profile cases of injustice, including that of HRH Sheikha Latifa Al Maktoum, the daughter of the ruler of Dubai.
UK Press Contact
David Haigh / Peter Margetts
+44 (0) 203 900 1188+ 44 (0) 752 707 7777
press@detained.org.uk
USA Press Contact
Jordan A Schneider
Detained International Inc
+ 1 (0) 202 978 1188+ 1 (0) 571 259 4624
