Report: 15,000 Pakistanis arrested and deported from UAE, savings seized

AI Summary

The UAE has reportedly arrested and deported around 15,000 Pakistani workers without formal charges, raising human rights concerns. Many of these workers had been residing in the UAE for extended periods, losing access to their savings in the process.

Report: 15,000 Pakistanis arrested and deported from UAE, savings seized New Lines Magazine reported that authorities in the United Arab Emirates have detained and deported up to 15,000 Pakistani workers, many of them Shia Muslims, without formal charges. The report said the actions followed a pattern of arrests, phone confiscations, transfers between detention sites and deportation flights to Pakistan. The workers were sent back "without being given the opportunity to withdraw their funds" from banks, the report cited a Shia cleric as saying.  Many of those expelled had spent decades working in the UAE, where migrant remittances remain a critical source of income for families and foreign exchange for Pakistan.  Pakistani window cleaners work on the facade of a building in the Gulf emirate of Dubai on 6 September 2014. (Rene Slama / AFP)