A/HRC/42/CRP.1 (h) Violations 247. Enforced disappearance is prohibited by international human rights law and international humanitarian law, notably as a violation of the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of liberty and possibly of the prohibition of torture.342 International human rights law and international humanitarian law also prohibit arbitrary detention.343 Considered as arbitrary are deprivations of liberty that are contrary to international law provisions, mostly those relating to the right to a fair trial or other procedural guarantees, or to unlawful restrictions on the exercise of fundamental freedoms.344 Depriving a person of the right to a fair trial may be considered a war crime in a non-international conflict.345 248. Based on its investigations, the Group of Experts has reasonable grounds to believe that numerous cases of enforced disappearances took place in Aden, Shabwah and Hadramaut Governorates, and in Assab, Eritrea, along with a practice of arbitrary detention in all above-described facilities. In terms of enforced disappearances, a network of facilities has been used to disappear individuals, mainly those perceived to oppose the UAE, keeping them away from any judicial oversight, as well as from their relatives. This is the case for the following detention facilities: Al-Bureiqa coalition base detention facility (UAEcontrolled secret facility); Al-Rayyan detention facility (UAE airbase secret facility); Martyrs Brigade camp and al-Hawtah camp (controlled by UAE-backed Shabwah Elite forces); Belhaf coalition base (controlled by UAE); Al-Tin detention facility (secret facility controlled by the Government of Yemen and Saudi armed forces); Assab detention facility, Eritrea (UAE secret facility). 249. In all detention facilities described above, the detention is considered arbitrary mainly due to denial of fair trial rights, such as detention without legal proceedings or with no charges for long periods of time (exceeding 2 years in some cases); no access to legal representation, the non-compliance with release orders issued by prosecutors and government officials in the absence of charges, or delays in such releases. In some cases, the detention is also arbitrary as the detainees were arrested and held because they had expressed their opposition to the authorities in control. UAE-backed Security Belt forces (with law enforcement powers under the authority of the Government of Yemen), often from the Counter-Terrorism Unit, carried out almost all arrests of detainees held at Bir Ahmed II, al-Bureiqa, and the smaller unofficial sites. While al-Bureiqa is run by the coalition and Bir Ahmed II is run by the UAE-backed Security Belt, the Government of Yemen has no access to detainees, nor power to release them. Some detainees were held there between four months and two and a half years. The same is true at the facility of alMounawara, where the Governor of Hadramaut did not allow the release of detainees following orders by the prosecutor, hence holding detainees up to three years with no formal charges or legal proceedings. At al-Tin detention centre, a joint facility managed by the Yemeni armed forces and Saudi Arabia, detainees were also held for long periods without legal proceedings. Some were eventually charged after two to three years and sent to the al-Mounawara detention centre. The fact that detainees were arrested and held in these detention facilities for their perceived or public opposition to the UAE and the 342 Art. 9 ICCPR and Art 1 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED); see ICRC Study on customary IHL, rule 98. 343 Art. 9 and 14 ICCPR; Art. 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Art. 4 Additional Protocol II; See ICRC Study on customary IHL, rule 99. 344 ICCPR, arts. 9 and 14; see also Human Rights Committee general comment No. 35 (2011) on liberty and security of person; and the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (A/RES/43/173); The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has identified five legal categories relating to arbitrary detention: (a) when there is no legal basis for the deprivation of liberty, (b) when the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of fundamental freedoms, (c) when the violations of norms relating to the right to a fair trial are of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character, (d) when migrants are subjected to prolonged administrative custody without the possibility of administrative or judicial review or remedy, and (e) when the deprivation of liberty reflects discrimination, notably based on birth, national, ethnic or social origin, language, religion and political or other opinion (see Methods of work of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, A/HRC/36/38). 345 See ICRC Study on customary IHL, rule 100. 59