The UAE’s Federal Supreme Court has convicted 56 of the 94 Emiratis charged with plotting a coup against the government, according to local television reports.

The convicted UAE citizens were sentenced to between three and 10 years in prison, with eight absent suspects sentenced to 15 years and another 26 acquitted.

The trial came amid a UAE clampdown on any signs of anti-state activism in the wake of the Arab uprisings in 2011, which led to the fall of four governments in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region.

The defendants were accused of building a secret organisation with links to the Muslim Brotherhood that “launched, established and ran an organisation seeking to oppose the basic principles of the UAE system of governance and to seize power”, country’s Attorney-General Salem Saeed Kubaish said in January.

The 94 defendants reportedly include lawyers, academics, doctors and other professionals. Several told the court that they had been beaten in custody and feared for their lives. The state denies these accusations.