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LETTER FROM A LEBANESE FRIEND DEPORTED FROM THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

November 25, 2009

In News

Dear Norm ,

The events in brief as they happened :

The land of Golden opportunities …

This is what the UAE has been trying to promote itself through itself through CNN and other major media tycoons but underlying these smooth golden dunes lies violations of human rights in all its facets …

The man-hunt and the phone-tags started some while ago even before the Lebanese elections as I have figured out from the questions that were addressed to me during the 3 interrogations that were imposed on me by the Emirate CID …

I got a call immediately after the Lebanese elections ( 3 days after the elections: 10 of June 2009) to sit for a 4-hour interrogation at the Sharjah Immigration Department, the CID section. I arrived there at 8 am and was made to wait for 20 min in an office by myself without any clearance or justification for my long wait.

I suppose it was their primitive way of mental torture …

A young man of not more than 25 years entered the room and seated himself across the room and started his extensive questions about my past including my family , professional life and politics. From his questioning, I recognized that they had bugged my home phone, were reading my mobile messages, were following me and checking out the people I was meeting for some while …

Not that there was anything worth listening, reading, or knowing …. I am just an ordinary dame!!!

His “polite questions” slowly transferred into accusations about my political views and religious beliefs…He also mocked my religious beliefs and practices (i.e. being a Shia)in a very callous way that was quite painful and agonizing since could not answer back or defend myself …Since this was the first time I had been faced with such insulting remarks …I think I was in shock ….He went beyond that to accuse me of being a member of “silent cells” (a term that I heard for the first time) that Hizbollah and Iran are trying to build in the UAE …

What a joke!!!

After he felt my resistance to his accusation he started asking questions about my personal life and specifically about my children, insinuating that they can have control over their destiny and then he would switch his attitude into a very subdued manner and tell me that he respected me and my position as a faculty member of the University of Sharjah!!!

I think he was playing bad cop/ good cop with me at that moment …I blame all the 2nd rate American movies for his pitiable line of questions …

Anyways, after 4 hrs he informed that I had to sign a paper saying that I would not share the contents of the interrogation with anyone otherwise I would be legally sought after …

After a while , around 3 weeks , a man came knocking at my door at around 3 am asking me to open the door otherwise he would break it down …with great fear I opened especially since that I lived alone , he went around the house checking for the presence of anyone and then he tried to attack me. By that time , I ran out of my villa into the streets and waited until he left after 10 minutes….and this all in the presence of a compound guard of the University’s campus witnessing the whole episode silently ….

Supposedly a safe place as it was written in our contracts!!!

I was not able to sleep for a single night after that episode in fear that I would be attacked in the middle of the night and no one would be able to know about it ….

The second time round I was called in during the holy month of Ramadan to go to Dubai and was told during the session that if I wanted to stay in the country I would have to take off my veil and give in my Iranian citizenship (since I have both the Lebanese and the Iranian) …I refused of course then I was threatened that I would have to bear the consequence…

By that time, I had decided to go back to my country but I was in conflict since I had to honor my contract with the University and my students…

During that time, my younger brother’s residential visa was not renewed because he was told he was a Shia (so they came to that realization after being there since 1976)???

They also hunted down my eldest brother ordering him to spy for them on his fellow Shia Lebanese residing in the UAE (specifically in Duabi and Sharjah )…When he refused they threatened the well- being of his family…So my brother left the country in two days …leaving his job , his house , and basically his life that he has been building for the past 13 years ….

My sister was also interrogated for 4 hrs for no apparent reason and was told that she had to be careful because she would called in at anytime …Be careful of what? She still is not clear on that!!!

Then they called me in at the Immigration Headquarters in the morning while I was lecturing my students again 4 weeks ago to get my eyes scanned as one of the procedures of my deportation … It was strange news since this took place 3 days after the Lebanese House Speaker visited the Emirates and had signed an agreement that the deportation of the Lebanese Shia would come to a halt!

During this final interrogation, I was forced into having my eyes scanned and was asked to sign a paper that I have been deported for security and special reasons …I refused of course and then they became verbally abusive with me and one of the officers attempted to dump me in a cell full of Phlipino , Indian and other Asian convicts. I still refused … I think they gave up on me and ordered me to go to the airport immediately and take the 4 o’clock plane …of which I did!!! I was deported on the 21st of October, 2009.

I am back in Lebanon … searching for a job and trying to put my life back together …The University in the UASE refused to even give me my month’s salary , the ticket , end of service, and other rights claiming that I have brought this to myself and they are not responsible for my “ political adventures” …

Talk about Human Rights in the land of Golden Opportunities …

Tc,