{"id":20359,"date":"2018-10-30T07:22:11","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T07:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20359"},"modified":"2018-10-30T07:22:11","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T07:22:11","slug":"british-scholar-jailed-in-uae-released-on-bail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20359","title":{"rendered":"British scholar jailed in UAE released on bail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A British academic charged with espionage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE<\/a>) has been temporarily released until his court date next month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matthew Hedges, a 31-year-old doctoral student at Durham University, was arrested on May 5 at Dubai airport after a two-week research visit. He was formally charged this month with spying on the Gulf state, where he has been held in solitary confinement for the past six months.<\/p>\n

The UAE’s Federal Court of Appeal last week postponed hearing his case until November 21 to re-examine the evidence.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0BBC reported<\/a>\u00a0that Hedges was released on bail without his passport, was ordered to wear a surveillance bracelet on his ankle and has been told to remain in the UAE until his next court appearance on November 21.<\/p>\n

“I of course welcome this development,” said his wife Daniela Tejada in a statement. “However, I cannot allow myself to get too excited by this information as Matt is not fully free yet.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, Hedges\u00a0<\/span>co-authored an article in an academic journal on the Muslim Brotherhood<\/a> and the Gulf Cooperation Council, of which the UAE is a member.<\/p>\n

The UAE is a tourism and trade hub in the Middle East, but tolerates little public criticism of its ruling families or policies and staunchly opposes the ideology of the Brotherhood.<\/p>\n

‘Monitoring developments’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A UAE government spokesperson could immediately be reached for comment outside working hours.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Britain’s foreign office in London said: “We are monitoring developments closely and have made the Emirati authorities aware of all our concerns. We continue to do everything we can for Matthew and his family.”<\/p>\n

The UAE’s attorney general has said Hedges was charged with spying for a foreign state, without naming it, and jeopardising the military, economic and political security of the country.<\/p>\n

More than 120 academics from around the world have issued a petition urging UAE authorities to release him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A British academic charged with espionage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been temporarily released until his court date next month.\u00a0 Matthew Hedges, a 31-year-old doctoral student at Durham University, was arrested on May 5 at Dubai airport after a two-week research visit. He was formally charged this month with spying on the Gulf…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}