UAE jails man for belonging to "secret organisation" - agency

REUTERS - A man has been jailed for three years for harming the reputation of the United Arab Emirates and for belonging to a secret organisation, state media reported, in an apparent reference to a group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The man, who was also fined 500,000 dirhams ($136,000), had disseminated misleading information at home and overseas, about a court case involving the secret organisation, WAM said. The report did not name the group, but the English-language daily newspaper The National reported on its website that the case in part concerned messages the 25-year-old Emirati man had posted on his Twitter account about his father, who was sentenced last year to 10 years in jail after being accused of being part of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE, a U.S. ally and major oil exporter, was unsettled by the rise of Islamists in the aftermath of the uprisings that rocked the Arab world from 2011. In July 2013, 61 Islamists were convicted by a UAE court of plotting to overthrow the government, activists said. Many of the jailed Islamists were members of the al-Islah group, which the UAE says has links to Egypt's Brotherhood. Al-Islah denies any organisational links to the group. (1 US dollar = 3.6730 United Arab Emirates dirham) (Reporting and writing by Reem Shamseddine; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)