Matthew Hedges affair should be a wake-up call for universities

Excerpt

The details coming from British academic Matthew Hedges about his six-month detention in the United Arab Emirates are harrowing. Hedges, who had been arrested in Dubai last May after completing a two-week research trip for his doctoral thesis, gave his first public interview in early December since his release the previous month. He described how he was kept in solitary confinement, interrogated in ankle cuffs, fed a dangerous mix of drugs, and forced to confess to spying for MI6. On November 21, at a five-minute hearing, an Abu Dhabi court sentenced him to life in prison for espionage. A global outcry followed, and after sustained efforts from Hedges’ wife and the British government, Hedges received a presidential pardon from the UAE – though a spokesman for the regime still asserted that the researcher was “100 percent” a spy.

The plight of Hedges adds to mounting concerns about academic freedom in the Gulf states, particularly in the wake of the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi. For American universities based in the Gulf, the Hedges affair should serve as a wake-up call to reexamine their ties to such autocratic regimes.

Varsha Koduvayur is a senior research analyst specializing in Gulf States issues at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Find her on Twitter @varshakoduvayur.