Foreign groups shut ‘over UAE licence issues’

 

THE UAE said licensing irregularities were behind the closure of ‘some foreign institutions’ in the Gulf state, shortly after two Western pro-democracy groups were told to shut their offices there. 

 

The US-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) said its license to work in Dubai had been abruptly cancelled, and German group Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) was similarly asked to leave the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi. 

 

“Some foreign institutions that were operating in the UAE have violated the terms of their licence; some have been operating without a licence,” said Abdul Rahim al-Awadhi, the UAE’s assistant foreign minister for legal affairs, without naming the institutions. 

 

“This obliged the legal authorities to issue instructions that they should cease their work in the UAE,” Awadhi was quoted as saying by UAE state news agency WAM. 

 

Both NDI and KAS told media they were puzzled by the move to close down their UAE offices. 

 

A spokesman for KAS said the group, which did not have a licence, had been trying to obtain one for the past two years and was in Abu Dhabi at the invitation of the emirate’s Crown Prince.

 

In Egypt, NDI was one of a number of civil society groups raided by police last year. Washington hinted at the time it could review its US$1.3 billion in annual military aid to Cairo.