Eighty-four people were tried, including government critics and human rights activists, many of them jailed for years after a similar mass trial in 2013.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal “sentenced 43 defendants to life imprisonment for the crime of creating, establishing and managing a terrorist organisation”, the official WAM news agency said.

Ten others were jailed for 10-15 years, WAM said. One defendant was acquitted and 24 cases were ruled inadmissible.

The bulk of the defendants have been in prison for more than a decade after they were jailed as part of the “UAE 94” trial in 2013, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Many had already completed their sentences.

But UAE authorities say the latest charges are “materially distinct” from those brought in 2013, which did not include accusations of financing a “terrorist organisation”.