At Monday’s trial in Abu Dhabi of 94 Emiratis accused of sedition, the court announced foreign journalists would be barred from the proceedings.

Anwar Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs, explained on Twitter that the UAE media would cover the trial alone “as per procedures decided by the court.”

The statement suggests that the judges at the State Security Court made the decision to bar foreign journalists on their own. However, the courts in the United Arab Emirates are not truly independent from the government, a hallmark of all Gulf monarchies. Courts rarely overrule the wishes of government prosecutors and have on occasion changed their decisions after the intervention of a ruler. (Emirati commentator Sultan Al Qassemi diligently documented the troubling lack of an independent judiciary in the GCC countries.)

Of course, the decision to bar foreign journalists was likely ordered at the highest level of government. The reason is simple: Foreign journalists are free to report on the trials in an objective and fair manner. The local press, meanwhile, has no freedom to report on the trial in any way that doesn’t support the government’s position.