Lebanese man says deported by UAE for refusing to spy on Hezbollah
More than 300 Lebanese - mostly Shiites - have been forced to leave the Emirates over the past three months.
By The Associated Press Tags: Hezbollah Lebanon Israel newsA Lebanese businessman alleged Thursday that he and several hundred compatriots were expelled from the United Arab Emirates because they refused to spy on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and other fellow citizens.
Hassan Alayan said more than 300 Lebanese - mostly Shiites - have been forced to leave the Emirates over the past three months. He said most of those deported said UAE authorities asked them to inform on fellow Lebanese Shiites living in the country and on Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
Authorities told the Lebanese they were being deported for security reasons, but they believe their refusal to spy was the real reason, Alayan told a news conference in Beirut. The Emirates refused to comment on the allegations, and Lebanese officials said they were contacting authorities there over the matter.
One of those deported, Zuhair Hamdan, said his residency permit was rejected after he refused to give authorities information about fellow Lebanese or possible Hezbollah sleeper cells in the UAE.
"I told them I have been living in the UAE for 33 years. How can I have information about Hezbollah," said Hamdan, who lived in the Emirates since he was 2 years old and worked as a traffic policeman.
The UAE is among several predominantly Sunni Arab nations wary of Shiite Iran's growing regional clout - which Iran partly maintains by supplying weapons and cash to the powerful Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A statement by a committee set up to represent the deportees suggested the decision by the Emirates could be the result of U.S. pressure to try to choke off routes of funding for the anti-American and anti-Israel Hezbollah. The U.S. considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
The Emirates is close to the United States and has cooperated with Washington in trying to shut down networks smuggling weapons to Iran, U.S. officials have said.
Alayan said some of those deported were forced to leave even after Lebanese President Michel Suleiman sent a military delegation five weeks ago to the UAE to try resolve the matter without success. More than 100 people who said they were deportees, as well as two Hezbollah legislators, attended the news conference in Beirut.
In whose interest is it to ask Lebanese to spy on one another and on the resistance of Lebanon and Palestine? said the committee's statement.
Alayan alleged UAE authorities have also deported Palestinians who refused to spy on the militant Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip. He said the Palestinians recounted similar pressures by authorities to inform on Hamas.
Some Arab media have reported that those who were deported were sending money to Hezbollah, a claim denied by Alayan and Ali Faour, another member of a committee representing the deportees.
Faour told reporters that most of those deported have been living in the UAE for decades and most were business owners.
Hezbollah, the largest and most powerful Shiite group in Lebanon, came to the defense of the deportees because most of them are Shiite. The deportees had been silent for a few months but last week started meeting with Lebanese officials to complain about their treatment.
Lebanon's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, urged UAE President Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to take a quick initiative to rescue hundreds of Lebanese families.
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem, described the deportations as clear injustice and called on the UAE to be fair with people who are not suspected of working against their host country.
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"Kinda reminds me of what it will be like for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis that will be expelled from the W. Bank when Palestine is created...." - Jane Agreed, it is is inhumane. It might well be that the 'expulsions' are more a matter of the recession than any intrigue. I follow several newspapers from the Gulf region and while they are all given to government line 'happy face' news, one can learn to read between the lines. The economy is not what it was, and it might just be time to lessen competition for nationals by running out foreign businessmen. A good example of this sort of thing is in today's Gulfnews http://www.gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/10352594.html
I know now why Brazil is such a poor country, even by Chilean Standards - Morons like you in self denial and lacking reading a book once every so often. So now you are saying that the PM of Lebanon who tried to persuade the UAE is also working for Israel - if you are brave enough and have a death wish - tell it to him yourself.
you wanted her annihilation,you attacked her in 1948 saying it would be easy,you invited your own people to leave temporarily their homes and now you want us to feel sorry for you? I feel sorry for Israelis who were killed because they wanted to have their own country,not for you. Who would feel sorry for a bunch of blood thirsty murderers that killed innocent people in Lebanon,Jordan and Israel?
We all know the truth and it is that Palestinians were not expelled when the State of Israel was created. They either left of their own free will or were encouraged to do so by the Arab world that believed they would destroy the Jewish State before it was even born and all the Arabs would return after the great defeat of the Jews. Oh well. Boy were they wrong and so is your fantasy of why some left. Those who stayed have done much better than those who left that's for sure. Let's try to keep some sense of truth in our posts eh.
If you have no answer to your wondering question of why arabs should expel arabs, then i propose you have no logical answer to why Israel should be interested in expelling lebanese from the UAE!
prior to that and filled the refugee camps in lebanon when whats her name launched war on them
doesn't surprise me. mid East politics is back stabbing. bribing, conniving, consroting, distorting, betraying, pretending,threatening, hugging, making sulcha, and smiling all at once. hilary clinton, please take note.
They pressure the UAE through the U.S.A they just signed a nuclear agreement with the to purchase a a reactor
Kinda reminds me of what it will be like for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis that will be expelled from the W. Bank when Palestine is created....
The Israelis are behind the UAE expelling Lebanese nationals????????????? Maybe Marco all the UAE citizens are Israelis in disguise? Maybe all the UAE nationals are secretly in underground desert caverns guarded by Israelis. Maybe the world is made of stilton cheese.
To accuse people who lived for 3 decades of being security risk now those people helped build the desert Uae from scratch those same people can return the Uae to scratch
This UAE's move constitute one of those gestures promised to Israel. In reality, Israel is behind those deportations. Probably Israel is paying to the Emirates to get rid off the Lebanese. What is the reason for arabs to spell arabs?