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May 01, 2026
Pakistani Nationals Allege ArbitraryDetention and Deportation from the UAEBy Surbhi Gupta
Dubai: For Sarah Ali, the first sign of trouble came when stories about men from her village in Pakistan and neighboring Shiite-majority areas disappearing or being deported without explanation began to crop up in her social media feeds and WhatsApp groups, as well as in conversations with relatives back home. Her husband, Taha, had worked for Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority for over a decade, so at first she didn’t think much of it.
Then, on April 12, just as he began an overnight shift, the officers stationed at his workplace were alerted about his name and photo appearing in a police system. According to Taha, the officers (who knew him personally) were visibly confused, asking what he had done before realizing they were being instructed to detain him. Plainclothes officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) transported him from his workplace in handcuffs.
“He was in complete shock,” Ali, who asked for her name to be changed, told New Lines. “They showed him his photo and asked what he had done. Then they told him, ‘We’re really sorry, but we can’t take your phone away from you, because they’re watching us.’”
Within hours, he was handcuffed and taken to Jebel Ali police station. There, he was told only that his case was being handled at another facility. He would later be transferred to another detention site before ending up at Al-Awir, which is widely understood to be the final stop before deportation. No formal charges were presented at any stage, a pattern described by multiple detainees.
Ali flew to Dubai days later and attempted to locate him across the detention facilities, where she encountered other families also trying to make contact with their loved ones. At each site, she was given vague explanations without actually being told what he had been charged with. At one point, an officer suggested he may have shared images related to the ongoing regional conflict, a claim she rejected.
“Because he has a job in the government, they have very strict rules. So, he doesn’t post anything political. He doesn’t post anything religious,” she said. “In fact, for like, the last two months, roughly, or three months, he’s not even had any social media. He had deactivated everything.”
Ali was told repeatedly to return later, only to be turned away again. At Al-Awir, she said officials drifted between talking about the case in terms of deportation and “continued investigation,” but offered no formal documentation.
Days after his arrest, she was ultimately granted a brief visit on visitors’ day, but only for 10 minutes and through a glass partition. Finally, Taha was deported, less than a week after his arrest. He told New Lines he was placed on a flight to Faisalabad, despite being from a village several hours away.
Their story is one of a growing number of testimonies from Pakistani nationals and their families, who say they and their relatives have been detained and, in many cases, deported from the United Arab Emirates without explanation. According to these accounts, a majority of those affected appear to be Shiite.
These reports come amid strains in UAE-Pakistan ties. As the South Asian nation emerged as a mediator between the United States and Iran, the UAE made a surprise request for its longtime ally Islamabad to immediately repay a debt of $3.5 billion, prompting Saudi Arabia, which signed a mutual defense pact with Pakistan last year, to step in with financial support.
Observers said the demand may have been punitive and reflected Abu Dhabi’s growing frustration with Islamabad, particularly as the latter deepens ties with Riyadh and over what was seen as Pakistan’s muted response to Iranian attacks on the Gulf.
Moreover, remittances from the UAE are a critical source of foreign exchange for Pakistan, so deportations could affect thousands of families as well as the broader economy.
Recently, the UAE also foregrounded internal security threats, which included alleged Iran-linked “cells” operating inside the country, and arrested 27 accused members. In a video posted online, UAE security services stated that the threat from Iran “extends to attempts to destabilize our society from within,” encouraging residents to report any suspicious activity.
Even in Pakistan, a mix of tension and silence surrounds the question of the Shiite community, many of whom are uneasy about the country’s mediation role and deepening engagement with the US after the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei…
Against this backdrop, the deportation of Pakistani Shiites from the UAE places Islamabad in an increasingly precarious position. When New Lines approached Tahir Andrabi, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he denied the deportations and abruptly hung up.
Mohammad Amin Shaheedi, a senior Shiite cleric and chief of Ummat-e-Wahida Pakistan, a religious and political organization representing Pakistan’s Shiite community, told New Lines that, in the wake of the Iran war, the UAE government had launched “what appears to be an organized campaign to deport Shiite individuals from the country.”
According to Shaheedi, the deportations have affected around 5,000 Pakistani Shiite families, comprising roughly 15,000 individuals. “They were reportedly sent back with little more than the clothes on their backs, without being given the opportunity to withdraw their funds from banks or settle their financial affairs,” he said.
“Tragically, the government of Pakistan has so far maintained complete silence on this matter,” Shaheedi said, adding that a “growing sense of fear, anxiety and insecurity had spread among Pakistani Shiite communities residing in other Arab countries.” - New Lines
Courtesy New Lines
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