Safe?
> Human Rights Watch has reported on the country's ongoing unfair mass trials, restrictions of freedom of speech and abuses to migrant labour forces.[217] The annual Freedom House report on Freedom in the World has listed the United Arab Emirates as "Not Free" every year since 1999, the first year for which records are available on their website.[218] In 2025, the country ranked 18 out of 100 in terms of the freedom index, due to a lack of free elections, lack of government transparency and accountability, and a lack of free media and independent judicial system, and low scores against other metrics.[140]
> At the same time, the UAE has made it illegal to disseminate online material that can threaten "public order",[375] and hands down prison terms for those who "deride or damage" the reputation of the state and "display contempt" for religion. Journalists who are arrested for violating this law are often brutally beaten by the police.[376]
> Freedom of association is also severely curtailed, and in most cases, banned under existing law. In the UAE an association requires twenty individuals, none of which can have previous convictions and must be preauthorized and registered with the government.[219] All associations have to be submitted to censorship guidelines and all publications have first to be approved by the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...
