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Nearly 90% of the people living in the United Arab Emirates are foreign workers. They come from all over the world and include among them Shia Muslims. After the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran, where Shia Muslims dominate, many Shia in the UAE started getting kicked out. NPR's Diaa Hadid reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language)
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: A Shia mosque in the Emirates shares a video online, mourning the slaying of the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. It's a commemoration that's observed by Shias. They're a minority among Muslims globally, including in the UAE, but they dominate Iran. Intizar (ph), a Shia, says he used to worship in places like this.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in non-English language)
INTIZAR: (Speaking Pashtu).
HADID: He says those Shia mosques are tightly monitored by security. He's sure that's why he was deported on May 1.
INTIZAR: (Speaking Pashtu).
HADID: Intizar was deported to his home country, Pakistan, where Shias form a small but significant minority. That's why he asked we only use his first name. He worries that if he's identified, he might anger Emirati officials and ruin his chances of one day returning to his old job as a Dubai taxi driver. It's a fear echoed by the dozen or so Pakistani men who told NPR they were deported after the war began in February. They, too, requested anonymity, holding on to the hope that they might one day return to work in the Emirates. That's also why it's difficult to know how many Pakistani Shia men have been affected. People are afraid to come forward.
Pakistani legislators told NPR that anywhere between 5,000 to 18,000 Shia Pakistanis had been deported. These deportees include Arsalan Hussain Bukhari (ph). He's one of the rare few who agreed to speak publicly. Bukhari says he received a call on April 28 when he was in Dubai.
ARSALAN HUSSAIN BUKHARI: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: An unidentified Emirati official ordered him to surrender himself at a nearby police station.
HUSSAIN BUKHARI: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: From the police station, Bukhari was transferred to a detention center. He says there he saw thousands of other men slated for deportation. Bukhari was assigned the number, 2,053.
HUSSAIN BUKHARI: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: He says guards ordered them to strip naked...
HUSSAIN BUKHARI: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: ...Stand in a line...
HUSSAIN BUKHARI: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: ...Bend over, spread out their butt cheeks and stay that way for a minute.
HUSSAIN BUKHARI: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: Bukhari says, "we felt so humiliated. We couldn't look at each other. We just stared at the floor."
Emirati authorities declined to comment to detailed questions sent by NPR regarding the issue. Pakistan's foreign ministry says the accounts of deportations are, quote, "vicious propaganda." Javed Hussain, a former state legislator, says the government doesn't want to anger the Emirates because it's provided billions to Pakistan in the past. And many Pakistani still work there and send remittances home. And so...
JAVED HUSSAIN: Our own government literally refuses to accept what's going on with our people.
HADID: Neil Quilliam is an associated fellow at the British think tank Chatham House. He says the Emirates is angry at Pakistan for expressing sympathy with Iranian victims and because Pakistan is mediating to try and end the conflict, while the Emirates has sided with the U.S. and Israel.
NEIL QUILLIAM: The Emiratis would have preferred Pakistan to come out more fervently against Iran, most certainly not to act as a mediator.
HADID: So why specifically target Pakistani Shia? One recently deported man, Syed (ph), says he was interrogated for hours by Emirati authorities. He says they conflated being Shia with being pro-Iran.
SYED: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: Syed says he was asked about his faith, if he visited Iran and asked repeatedly about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader who was assassinated when the war began.
SYED: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: Like many deportees, Syed says life has been hard since he was forced back to Pakistan. His bank accounts were frozen by Emirati authorities. Now he can't access years of his savings - tens of thousands of dollars.
GULZAR: (Speaking Pashtu).
Another recently deported man, Gulzar (ph), says the money he made in the Emirates lit up his home like a candle.
GULZAR: (Speaking Pashtu).
HADID: "And now," he says, "my home is dark." Diaa Hadid, NPR News, New Delhi.
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