Cycad, I am not sure why you are taking it upon yourself to defend the UAE from criticism, but the evidence is against you; you've been swatting away other sources, so let's have a brief look at what two of the world's leading human rights organizations have to say:
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/united-arab-emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) continued in 2014 to arbitrarily detain individuals it perceives as posing a threat to national security, and its security forces continued to face allegations that they torture detainees in pretrial detention. UAE courts invoked repressive laws to prosecute government critics, and a new counterterrorism law poses a further threat to government critics and rights activists. Migrant construction workers on one of the country’s most high-profile projects continued to face serious exploitation, and female domestic workers were still excluded from regulations that apply to workers in other sectors.
Foreigners account for more than 88.5 percent of UAE residents, according to 2011 government statistics, but despite labour reforms, low-paid migrant workers continue to be subjected to abuses that amount to forced labor. Domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse, since they do not enjoy even the minimal protection afforded by UAE labor law. The kafala sponsorship system, which operates in all Gulf Cooperation Council states, ties migrant workers to individual employers who act as their visa sponsors. In practice, the system severely restricts workers’ ability to change employers. The system gives employers inordinate power over workers by entitling them to revoke migrant workers’ sponsorship at will, thereby removing their right to remain in the UAE and making them liable to deportation.
Domestic violence is permitted under UAE law. Article 53 of the UAE's penal code allows the imposition of “chastisement by a husband to his wife and the chastisement of minor children” so long as the assault does not exceed the limits prescribed by Sharia, or Islamic law. Article 56 of the UAE's personal status code obligates women to “obey” their husbands. In 2010, the UAE’s Federal Supreme Court issued a ruling—citing the UAE penal code—that sanctions beating and other forms of punishment or coercion by husbands on their wives, provided they do not leave physical marks.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/united-arab-emirates/report-united-arab-emirates/
Despite protective provisions in the 1980 Labour Law and subsequent decrees, foreign migrant workers were exploited and abused. Many workers, who had generally paid fees to recruiting agents, reported that they were deceived over the terms and conditions of their work. Construction workers often lived in poor and inadequate accommodation, while few held their own passports. Late payment or non-payment of wages was common. The kafala sponsorship system made workers vulnerable to abuse by employers, while those involved in collective action such as strikes or sit-ins were liable to arrest and deportation.
I can't be arsed to dig up specific sources about gay rights, but I hardly need to at this point since we both know what they will say. And while you are correct that Dubai has almost no oil or natural gas, I'm sure you're fully aware that it was built using oil money, and is heavily dependent on funding from other Emirates that do rely on oil, namely Abu Dhabi, which bailed them out several years ago to the tune of about $10 billion.
So the government of the UAE is definitely quite a reprehensible one - while abuses occur in all countries, some governments are more culpable than others. If you wish to challenge that assessment, the evidence is against you there, too: the most recent Freedom House
report gives the UAE a score of "not free," equal to Russia, Afghanistan and Iran, and The Economist's
Democracy Index gives the UAE a rating of 2.64 out of 10, just below Afghanistan and above Sudan. Though, as I said before, this doesn't give anyone the right to judge someone simply because they're from there, far less wish physical harm upon them.
