BEIRUT: Three Lebanese citizens recently deported from the United Arab Emirates arrived at Beirut airport Sunday, with more expected to come later as the reasons for their expulsion are still unclear.
Sources at Beirut airport said that three Lebanese citizens arrived from the Emirate of Sharjah, a day after four other deportees flew in from Abu Dhabi.
A flight departing from Abu Dhabi arrived in Beirut at 11 p.m. Saturday and carried four Lebanese citizens who were deported from the UAE, Hassan al-Ayan, the head of a committee representing Lebanese citizens who were expelled from the country, told The Daily Star Sunday.
The reason the Lebanese were deported is unclear, as the UAE has not yet issued an official statement.
Leila Hatoum, co-founder of news service Mideastwire.com and based in the UAE for seven years, said that the authorities there had declared the Lebanese nationals “persona non-grata,” a status assigned to people no longer welcome in a certain country. This declaration also absolves the UAE from having to provide a reason for their deportation.
“[Countries] only resort to this measure when the person is considered a risk to social security, economic security or a military risk,” Hatoum explained.
In this context, impacting social security could involve inciting sectarian strife or bringing Lebanese “political baggage” to the UAE, Hatoum added.
Deportees were kept in the dark about the reasons behind their extradition. A source at Beirut airport said Lebanese arriving from the UAE are flying individually, keeping a low profile and refusing to talk to the media.
Ayan, who was at the airport Saturday, said that those arriving were still in a state of shock.
The committee head recounted a conversation he had with one arrival who said that he wasn’t able to sell his car, furniture or other belongings because he was given 48 hours to leave the country.
The man had told Ayan that UAE authorities were unwavering when he requested an extension to the two-day deadline to settle his affairs.
“All he could do was finalize paperwork at the company where he is employed and request an official document allowing his relatives, who still reside in the UAE, to assume ownership of his property,” Ayan said.
Hatoum said that all deportees lost money under similar circumstances and are entitled to sue the UAE government, with the help of the Foreign Ministry, if compensation is not forthcoming.
The arrivals came two days after roughly 70 Lebanese citizens were notified by Lebanon’s embassy and consulates in the UAE of the decision taken to have them and their families deported. Most Lebanese facing deportation are Shiites.
The decision to deport was the third time in six years a Gulf nation has taken the measure.
In 2009, dozens of Lebanese Shiites who had lived in the UAE for years were expelled on suspicion of having links with Hezbollah.
According to Hatoum, diplomatic ties helped halt planned deportations in 2009, when Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri spoke to UAE Prime Minister Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum and was able make a compromise. At that time, the families of the deportees were allowed to stay in UAE, but according to Ayan, this was not the case for the recently deported.
In 2013, Qatar also expelled 18 Lebanese citizens, after the Gulf Cooperation Council imposed sanctions against Hezbollah for its military intervention in the Syrian war.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has been at odds with Gulf states. The Syrian crisis, which entered its fifth year this month, is a particularly thorny subject between the resistance and Gulf states.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Tammam Salam raised the matter with Sheikh Mohammed on the sidelines of an economic conference in Egypt Saturday. According to a statement issued by Salam’s office, Maktoum stressed that the “UAE has neither a policy nor an intention to target Lebanese residents.”
“Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid clarified that if measures were taken against some Lebanese, they were certainly based on particular security concerns and do not exceed this limit,” it added.
Future Movement Secretary-General Ahmad Hariri, who visited the Lebanese Embassy in Abu Dhabi Sunday, also hinted that the UAE’s decision targeted Lebanese residents who posed security concerns for the UAE.
“As long as the Lebanese is liable to the country hosting him, this country will also be liable to him, and will be keen on guarding his rights and his interests,” Hariri said in a statement released by his media office.
Hariri added that Lebanese expats are forced to respect the law and sovereignty of the country they reside in, because a departure from that country’s laws would serve as an attack on its sovereignty and would undermine the achievements of the Lebanese expat community as a whole.
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