At the UN Human Rights Council, newly-elected Council member the United Arab Emirates capitalized on the opportunity to enjoy its new status and cultivate its human rights image. It sent its Minister of State for Foreign Affairs to tout UAE's "great progress" in "empowerment of women", children's rights, "improving labor regulations", and promotion of "equality before the law". But here's the
State Dept. Country Report on Human Rights 2011 about the UAE: "The legal punishment for conversion from Islam is death... The penal code allows men to use physical means, including violence...against female and minor family members...female victims of rape or sexual crimes faced the possibility of prosecution...Under Sharia the death penalty is the punishment for individuals who engage in consensual homosexual activity... Domestic workers routinely were subject to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse."