Hundreds of Shiites Ousted from Persian Gulf Arab States

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - When Ali Farhat was summoned to the immigration department in the United Arab Emirates, the 33-year-old Lebanese restaurant worker knew he would have to pack up his family and leave fast.

Like many Shiite Muslims working in the oil-rich Gulf state, Farhat says he popped up on the country's deportation radar merely because of his sect.

"I felt like a criminal, but I did not know what I did wrong," said Farhat, who had lived in the UAE for 15 years before his expulsion in May. "It seems that my only crime was that I am Shiite."

Long considered by authorities as a security threat, hundreds of Shiites have been quietly expelled from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states on suspicion of being supporters of Hezbollah. The deportations have surged in recent months after the group publicly joined the civil war in Syria on the side of President Bashar Assad, an archenemy of Israel.

Last month, Saudi Arabia announced plans to deport Lebanese and Iranian Shiite Muslims and the other Gulf states say they too are reconsidering the status of their Shiite guest workers.

A Lebanese diplomat stationed in the Gulf confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that the stepped-up deportations from Saudi Arabia have begun, adding that he has documented an average of three cases a week in the past three weeks.

Farhat, like hundreds of other deportees, was never given an official reason for his family's expulsion, and was not able to challenge it in court or at a government agency.

Hezbollah's backing of the Syrian president has angered the overwhelmingly Salafi (and Wahhabi) and Europe rebels fighting to topple president Assad. Several Syria-based Islamist groups have threatened to attack Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon in retaliation.

"People start living in fear because they always think that they will be next," he told The Associated Press.

He recounted his ordeal on the phone, speaking from a village in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, where he returned with his wife and their young daughter. The family has been forced to move in with his parents.

Farhat's boss and his boss' family were ordered out of the UAE at the same time, he said, adding they were given just a week to pack up. After they were served the deportation order, they were put in a police van and taken to the immigration department. Their residency permits were canceled on the spot, their passports seized by officials. They got the documents back at the airport on their way out of the country.

Ali Rashid, a 45-year-old Lebanese businessman, had lived for 33 years in the UAE's capital, Abu Dhabi, where he owned four restaurants and a gift shop worth $3.5 million. In December 2011, he was told by authorities that he had 10 days to leave with his wife and three daughters. He bought one-way tickets to Beirut with $10,000 in cash he managed to take out of his bank account.

Rashid's ties to the country go beyond his business investment: His father served in the security force that protected the family of Sheik Zayed Al Nahyan before he united seven city-states in the early 1970s, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, into a federation that is now ruled by Sheik Zayed's sons.

"I loved that country more than the Emiratis do," Rashid said, proudly showing off a black-and-white photograph of his father in a tribal robe, holding a rifle and a sword. His eyes filled with tears when he looked at a picture of himself, dressed in a white dishdasha and headscarf, traditional attire of Gulf men.

"I asked them for a reason, did I drive through a red light?" Rashid said. "They said, 'No, it's an order from the top.'"

Privately, Rashid said, the immigration officials told him that his only problem was that he is Shiite, but when he asked them to put it in writing, they refused.

So did Hassan Alayan back in 2009, when he was deported along with his wife and four children from the UAE, where he had lived for 27 years working as a journalist.

Alayan now runs a committee to represent the deportees in Beirut.

He has registered the names of 400 Shiite families who have been expelled from the UAE in the past four years, but says the number is much higher because many won't speak about their ordeals for fear of jeopardizing the immigration status of relatives still in the Gulf.

He estimated that about 100 people have been deported from Gulf countries in the past weeks, but said there were no accurate figures. Many families refused to talk to the media and several declined to be interviewed by the AP.

"It's a very simple mentality they have in the Gulf, and that is that all Shiites support Hezbollah with money," Alayan said.

While Alayan, Rashid and Farhat all denied ever supporting Hezbollah, the end of their prosperous lives in the UAE has made them prouder Shiites, Rashid said.

"Their behavior gave us more power to be Shiite," he said.

Above Photo: In this Wednesday, July 10, 2013 photo, Shiites Hassan Alayan, left, who was expelled from the UAE in 2009, speaks with Ali Rashid, right, who was expelled from the UAE in 2011, at a cafe in Beirut, Lebanon.

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