UAE strips six of citizenship citing security threat
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates has revoked the citizenship of six nationals whom it said posed a threat to national security, but the men said they were being punished for demanding political reform in the oil-rich monarchy. The men whose citizenship is being revoked carry the names of well-known tribes in the UAE, which was established in 1971 as a union of former British dependencies in the Gulf.
The government's move to strip the six of their citizenship has created a rift within the wide network of clans in the UAE, with supporters of the men trading insults with those who denounce them in social media.
"We're afraid of a split in the tribal community... A fire, when it starts, grows then burns everything around it.
Right now, there's just smoke, but if it's not stopped, it can be very dangerous," said Ismail al-Housni, who belongs to the same tribe as one of the men stripped of citizenship. "I hope that people of wisdom will stop this and solve the issue officially."
The official WAM news agency said that the citizens, most of whom were nationalised in the 1970s, had endangered national security through “their connection with suspicious regional and international organisations and personalities”.
The government move appears to be a response to fears that political activism is increasingly challenging the leadership of the oil-rich federation following the Arab spring.
The UAE appears to be trying to douse any ambitions that the well-organised Islah movement may have of exploiting the rising tide of political Islam across the region.
The Islamist group, which claims to have as many as 20,000 supporters, has drawn increasing attention from the government this year. The rise of political Islam after the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt has raised alarm bells in the UAE, with some fearing that Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers could use religion to challenge the rulers’ tribal legitimacy over the Gulf’s business hub.
The Islah incident risks blowing up into another human rights issue for this strong western ally, which, underpinned by Abu Dhabi’s vast oil wealth, has escaped the wave of street protests sweeping the Arab world.
One of the six men stripped of his citizenship, Shaheen al-Housni, told Reuters the accusations against him and the other men were baseless, and denied that he had ever had another nationality. He said the men were targeted for their Islamist political orientation.
Jail terms have been imposed on activists who sought greater power for an elected body and accused the state of bribing its citizens to avoid real political reform.Some of the men had signed a petition sent to the leaders of the UAE demanding that the country's Federal National Council, an advisory body, be endowed with greater powers.
View reports: Financial Times ; The Times of India
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