In total, 43 people have been sentenced to life imprisonment for "terror-related" crimes in the United Arab Emirates, according to the state-controlled news agency Wam.
The convicted were prosecuted at the beginning of the year along with an additional 41 people, of whom "most are members of the terrorist organization Muslim Brotherhood" according to the prosecutors.
Most of the accused have been imprisoned since they were convicted in a similar mass trial in 2013, when 94 political activists, lawyers, students, and teachers were brought to court. Then, too, the charges concerned membership in the organization banned in the United Arab Emirates.
The legal proceedings are being criticized by human rights organizations. Human Rights Watch calls the verdict "a farce" and "another nail in the coffin for the emirate's emerging rule of law", while Amnesty International calls the trial "a shameless parody of justice".
