Activists have called on the UK to investigate the death in a car accident near London this weekend of a young Emirati who ran a Gulf human rights organization based in the UK capital.

Read alsoThe dissident, the documentary that tells the whole truth about the Khashoggi affair

The director of the ALQST organization and daughter of Mohammed al-Siddiq, an Emirati political prisoner, Alaa al-Siddiq died on Saturday near London in a car accident after a dinner organized for her 33rd birthday, according to these activists. “We need the UK authorities to reassure us and remove the criminal trail, given the track record of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in tracking, targeting and harassing activists and their families abroad.Sarah Leah Whitson, a member of the ALQST board, said in a statement Sunday. The latter also heads the DAWN organization, based in the United States and founded by Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who has become a detractor of power, assassinated in 2018 at his country’s consulate in Istanbul. The British police did not react.

ALQST, an organization that documents what Sarah Leah Whiston calls widespread state abuse in the Gulf, including arrests in Saudi Arabia of activists, academics or even members of the royal family, posted on Twitter that it found no evidence of a criminal act. “The police think the same and will publish the results of their investigation when it is finished.Added the organization. The director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, Khalid Ibrahim, called for a full investigation, saying the activist was “constantly in danger». «We work in a very hostile environment and governments like those in the Gulf are using surveillance technologies to hack into our accounts.He told the Telegraph. “We all know what happened to Khashoggi“He told the British newspaper.

DAWN called on the UAE authorities to release Alaa al-Siddiq’s father, who has been imprisoned according to the organization since 2012, and to allow the young woman’s remains to be returned to be buried according to the Islamic customs of his city. “His exile (in the UK for more than ten years, note) was a direct consequence of his government’s repressionMrs. Whitson said. The UAE government has not responded to the activist’s death.