Lebanon's government should hold to account officials responsible for the January 2025 unlawful extradition of the Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman Youssef al-Qaradawi to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Human Rights Watch and MENA Rights Group said today. Al-Qaradawi remains arbitrarily detained there in near-incommunicado conditions.
Lebanese authorities arrested al-Qaradawi on December 28, 2024, upon his return from Syria based on a provisional arrest request from Egypt. The UAE made an additional arrest and extradition request, which was circulated by the Arab Interior Ministers Council and cited charges including "engaging in activities that aim to stir and undermine public security."
"By acting on an unfounded politically motivated request, circulated through the Arab Interior Ministers Council, Lebanese authorities enabled transnational repression in violation of Lebanon's domestic law and its international obligations," said Tanya Boulakovski, senior legal officer and research lead at MENA Rights Group. "Lebanon's decision to extradite al-Qaradawi despite well-founded risks of torture and enforced disappearance underscores how regional security mechanisms like the Interior Ministers Council are being abused to silence peaceful critics across borders."
The Interior Ministers Council is tasked with circulating state-requested warrants to Arab League countries. Targeted individuals cannot seek access to the evidence underlying the request or to have the warrant withdrawn, and there is no mechanism to monitor abuse of its systems.
Between 2022 and 2025, MENA Rights Group documented seven cases of individuals targeted by the council's system, enabling transnational repression. Requested and requesting states include Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. All cases involved peaceful dissidents, protestors, or members of religious minorities facing extradition to Arab League countries where they risked grave human rights abuses, including torture, based on a report released by MENA Rights Group in May 2025.
The request to arrest and extradite al-Qaradawi, who is not an Emirati citizen and was not in the UAE when the alleged offense was said to have occurred, stems from a social media post by al-Qaradawi during a visit to Syria in December 2024 in which he criticized the authorities in the UAE and other Arab states.
Al-Qaradawi was extradited on January 8, 2025, despite an appeal filed by his lawyer before Lebanon's top administrative court, the State Shura Council, requesting the suspension of the cabinet's decision. United Nations experts had also expressed concern that "al-Qaradawi could be subjected to torture, ill-treatment or enforced disappearance if he is deported" and that the charges against him were "in retaliation for his legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression."
Shortly after he was extradited, the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the UAE's official state news agency, announced that al-Qaradawi had been taken into custody "pursuant to a provisional arrest warrant issued against him by the General Secretariat of the Arab Interior Ministers' Council" and that al-Qaradawi "faces charges of engaging in activities that aim to stir and undermine public security."
Emirati authorities have reportedly only allowed his family two brief visits, in March and August. The authorities have provided no information about his place of detention, legal status, or any judicial proceedings against him.
Extraditing al-Qaradawi to the UAE violated Lebanon's domestic laws and its international obligations, including under the International Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which Lebanon has ratified, Human Rights Watch and MENA Rights Group said. Article 34 of Lebanon's Penal Code states that extradition requests should be rejected when they arise "from crimes of a political nature, or that appear to be for a political purpose." A similar provision is found in the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation, a League of Arab States instrument governing extraditions between member states, which provides that nobody can be extradited "if the crime for which extradition is requested is considered by the laws of the requested party to be a crime of a political nature."
In October, Lebanon's State Shura Council rejected the appeal filed by al-Qaradawi's legal representative. It cited article 31 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which permits extraditions for offenses that "harm the security of the requesting state or its financial standing."
Over the last decade, Emirati authorities have enacted repressive laws and policies and unlawfully detained human rights defenders, activists, political dissidents, and other perceived critics. Scores of defendants are serving lengthy sentences following unfair trials on vague and broad charges that violate their rights to free expression and association.
Lebanon should cease its participation in transnational repression by refusing extradition requests, including those circulated by the Arab Interior Ministers Council on political grounds and that discriminate on the basis of political opinion and violate the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture, or other serious ill-treatment or a threat to their life, Human Rights Watch and MENA Rights Group said.
Lebanese authorities should open an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding al-Qaradawi's unlawful extradition and hold accountable former Lebanese ministers responsible for violating Lebanon's domestic laws and international human rights obligations, the groups said. These include a prohibition on discrimination based on political belief, and the absolute, non-derogable principle of non-refoulment.
The UAE should immediately release al-Qaradawi, refrain from extraditing him to Egypt, and allow him to go to a country where he does not face a risk of persecution. The UAE should release anyone held for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and refrain from requesting the extradition of other dissidents for those reasons.
Türkiye and the UAE's allies should pressure the Emirati government to release al-Qaradawi and anyone else wrongfully detained, the groups said. All Arab League states should refuse extradition requests from the UAE for anyone's peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression.
"Lebanon's unlawful deportation of al-Qaradawi raises the possibility that dissidents from across the Arab world could be snatched up and extradited without due process or consideration of the risks of abuse they might face," said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Lebanese authorities should ensure that those responsible for al-Qaradawi's deportation are held to account and that nobody else faces extradition merely because they peacefully criticized other Arab states."
