​‘Our only crime is being Shia’: Pakistani workers say UAE surveillance led to deportations

The first deportations passed almost unnoticed: a few labourers returning unexpectedly to their villages and towns across Pakistan, without luggage or prior warning to their families. 

But within weeks, reports of similar expulsions began surfacing across the country. Families started receiving sons, brothers, and fathers, mostly Shia Muslims, who had spent most of their adult lives working in the United Arab Emirates - men who said they were suddenly detained and deported without explanation.

Several Shia community leaders in many parts of Pakistan told Middle East Eye that thousands of Pakistani workers, most of them Shia Muslims employed in the UAE for years, have been deported since mid-April under opaque circumstances. 

Many of those expelled said that the UAE authorities never formally explained why they were deported. However, deportees and community representatives believe the campaign reflects mounting suspicion towards Shia communities amid escalating regional tensions involving Iran.

“They did not tell us any reason,” said Hussain Turi, a 45-year-old taxi driver from Pakistan’s Khurram district near the Afghan border, where local community elders have received nearly 200 residents to his village alone from the UAE in recent months. “But we understood. Our only crime is being Shia.”

The deportees described a sudden and highly opaque process. Several workers said they were summoned to local police stations without explanation, detained for days at detention centres and in jails, and later placed on flights to Pakistan without access to legal representation, formal charges, or any meaningful avenue to appeal their deportations. 

'They did not tell us any reason. But we understood. Our only crime is being Shia'

Similar concerns have also surfaced in Qatar, where Pakistani Shia labourers faced deportation earlier this year under comparable circumstances.

Pakistan’s government, however, has strongly denied allegations that Gulf states are specifically targeting Shia workers.

“Having gone through the details and data, it is necessary to state that all such reporting is malafide and part of vicious propaganda by vested interests,” Pakistan’s interior ministry said in a statement on 8 May. It added that no country- or sect-specific deportations are being carried out, including in the UAE. 

Despite the official denial, interviews with community leaders, deportees, and local activists across several Pakistani provinces suggest that Shia workers have been disproportionately affected since at least mid-April. 

Some Shia leaders, including prominent cleric Allama Amin Shaheedi, estimate that as many as 15,000 Pakistanis may have been deported or denied re-entry in recent months, though the absence of official data and the opaque nature of the deportations make it difficult to independently verify the scale of the expulsions. 

Indian Shia organisations, including the All India Shia Personal Law Board, have also raised concerns regarding the detention and treatment of Indian Shias by authorities in several Gulf countries, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia. 

But while the deportations have taken place within the context of the war in Iran, Shia Muslims described to Middle East Eye that they had been surveilled for years.

Surveillance, profiling and deportation

Most deportees requested anonymity or asked to be identified only by their surnames, fearing public exposure could permanently destroy any possibility of returning to the Gulf to recover savings, businesses, vehicles, or unpaid wages left behind.

Once there, they said, they were detained, briefly interrogated, and transferred to Dubai’s Al Awir detention centre, where they were held for between four and ten days before deportation. Most said they were placed on Flydubai flights to Karachi or Faisalabad.

Several deportees described what they believed was a sophisticated surveillance and profiling system focused on Shia religious identity.

Deportees allege that authorities identify individuals through mandatory security procedures at imambargahs (Shia congregation halls), where worshippers must scan their Emirates ID cards to enter. Such biometric checks are rarely, if ever, imposed at Sunni mosques, according to interviewees and community advocates who are familiar with the practice.

Community advocates and deportees suggest that biometric information, identity records, and attendance data collected at Shia religious venues over the years may have been used by security agencies to map networks of worshippers and identify individuals later detained for deportation.

Qaisar, a deportee from the Chakwal District in the province of Punjab, described being intercepted inside Dubai Mall after being flagged via CCTV. “They approached me directly and asked for my ID,” he told MEE. “They already knew exactly who I was.”

Abraham Accords flipped a switch

After the Abraham Accords normalised relations between the UAE and Israel in 2020, many Pakistani Shia expatriates say they have witnessed a marked shift in the security climate surrounding religious activity. 

While Ashura commemorations and majalis (council) gatherings continue to be permitted in some private spaces, Shia community elders say that public mourning rituals and Shia religious events have come under increasing surveillance, with some worshippers later detained and forcibly deported to Pakistan. 

Human Rights Watch also documented a rise in restrictions and security-related actions targeting Shia religious expression in the UAE in late 2020.

“At the imambargahs, they ask us to scan our Emirates ID cards before entering,” Abbas, a Lahore resident employed by an architectural firm before his deportation in late April, told MEE. “People became afraid of attending because they believed their names were being recorded.”

This dragnet has occasionally caught those outside the Shia sect. 

Raziq, a Sunni labourer from Sargodha in the Punjab Province, told MEE he was deported after being misidentified. “I often visited the imambargah for free food because I couldn’t afford lunch,” he said. “Despite being Sunni, I was deported for being Shia.”

Community members also alleged that, over recent years, UAE visit visas and employment permits had increasingly been delayed, rejected, or suspended for Pakistanis carrying surnames commonly associated with Shia communities, including Zaidi, Askari, Jafri, Hussain, Hasan, Turi, and Bangash. 

Others claimed applicants from Pakistani districts with sizable Shia populations, including Khurram, Kohat, Quetta, Hunza, and Skardu, faced heightened scrutiny during immigration and employment procedures. 

Some said applicants with such surnames were subjected to prolonged “security checks” or administrative reviews without explanation, while others claimed employers quietly avoided hiring workers perceived to belong to Shia backgrounds for fear of attracting scrutiny from authorities. 

MEE could not independently verify the scale of the alleged restrictions, and UAE authorities have not publicly commented on claims of surname-based profiling.

Several deportees also alleged that authorities confiscated bank cards, cash, and mobile phones before deportation, leaving many stranded upon arrival in Pakistan without access to savings or personal belongings. Others said they were denied the opportunity to contact employers, collect unpaid salaries, or retrieve their possessions before being placed on flights out of the country.

“Nobody accused us of a crime. Nobody showed us evidence,” said Haider Kazmi, an IT professional who had spent a decade working in Dubai. “They looked at our faith and decided we no longer belonged there.”

Kazmi said the manner of the deportations left many feeling humiliated and dehumanised.

Gulf suspicions and the shadow of Wilayat al-Faqih

Despite a general air of suspicion, security analysts and Shia community leaders argue that the recent deportations of Pakistani Shia Muslims are inextricably linked to the geopolitical tensions reshaping the Gulf, specifically the escalating confrontation between Iran, the US, and Israel that began on 28 February.

For decades, states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have viewed Shia religious networks and communities through the lens of Iranian influence after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and especially after the 2011 Arab uprisings. 

During periods of heightened conflict, these suspicions often manifest as increased scrutiny of Shia expatriate communities from Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. 

At the core of these concerns is the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih - “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist”. Developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, this doctrine serves as the Islamic Republic's ideological foundation, granting the supreme leader sweeping religious and political authority. 

Under this system, the supreme leader is viewed by adherents not merely as a national figure, but as the highest religious and political authority for Shia Muslims globally. 

While many Shia Muslims and senior clerics reject this doctrine, Gulf security establishments fear it fosters transnational loyalties that challenge the authority of Arab monarchies. 

These anxieties were highlighted on 20 April, when the UAE’s State Security Department announced it had dismantled a clandestine organisation allegedly linked to Iran, and claimed that the investigation uncovered ties to Iran’s Wilayat al-Faqih ideology, reinforcing fears of Iranian influence within expatriate communities. 

The regional climate deteriorated sharply following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli strike on 28 February in Tehran. This event triggered widespread unrest in many Muslim countries.

In Pakistan, protests by the Shia community turned violent, resulting in over 35 deaths. 

The subsequent emergence of the slain supreme leader's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new supreme leader has deepened Gulf fears regarding the continuity of Iran’s ideological project.

The Abraham Accords and the war on Iran have turbocharged the UAE's paranoia about the Shia community's perceived loyalties, and tens of thousands of Pakistanis are back in Pakistan with little recourse to earn back their livelihoods.