How the UAE Weaponizes and Commoditizes Citizenship

In mid-December 2024, Kuwait embarked on yet another citizenship revocation spree that saw 12,000 inhabitants (and counting) robbed of their identity within the span of just three months. According to Middle East Monitor, an additional 5,838 “law-breaking” Kuwaitis are on the chopping block. The grounds cited for pursuing such draconian action range from fraudulent applications to the possession of alternative passports and trumped-up terrorism charges. It is no secret that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states consider the extension of nationality a perk or gift rather than a constitutional right. Still more worrisome were the unverifiable allegations levelled against these victims by fellow countrymen via a “snitch hotline.” This is part of a wider trend throughout the region whereby local intelligence agencies coopt private citizens to keep tabs on each other and report “undesirables” to the host nation’s Interior Ministry as a side hustle. 

The neighboring UAE is no stranger to using citizenship as a bargaining chip either. In what came to be known as the “UAE94” affair at the height of the Arab Spring, pro-democracy advocates predominantly from the reformist Al-Islah movement were “denaturalized” and imprisoned after signing a petition which called for greater civic engagement. The Emirati leadership’s penchant for “collective punishment” meant that it was not just the signatories who were left stateless as a result of demanding wholesale change to the status quo, but also their immediate relatives. As far as Abu Dhabi was concerned, going for the jugular and making an example of this anti-establishment cohort was a surefire way of preventing other like-minded “freedom fighters” from pulling a similar stunt.

What sets the UAE apart from other Persian Gulf petrostates is the emphasis they placed on increasing the value proposition of their nationality in recent years. Rank-and-file Emiratis who grew accustomed to being treated like royalty in their own country were given a reality check of sorts and brought back down to earth whenever they ventured abroad. This was especially so across the Euro-Atlantic space where, far from being afforded the “big fish small pond” exceptionalism they enjoy back home, UAE nationals post-9/11 found themselves subjected to intrusive questioning at airport immigration counters and nightmarish bureaucracy beforehand in order to procure short-stay G7 or OECD visas. To render such travel-related encumbrances and humiliation a thing of a past, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, set up a “Passport Force initiative” in early 2017 tasked with bolstering the mobility privileges of what was at the time a relatively mediocre travel document. 

While this body’s official raison d’être was to improve worldly Emiratis’ quality of life and ease of movement while sparing them the pre-flight hassle of frequenting foreign embassies or filling in endless paperwork, it was also intended to raise the stakes for speaking out and deviating from officially-accepted discourse. The prospect of forgoing what is widely recognized today as “the world’s most powerful passport” will doubtless weigh heavily on the minds of budding dissidents for whom limited free speech is more than offset by unfettered access to most of the world. Thanks to the UAE’s newly-minted “zero problems” policy, its passport holders face no constraints when visiting the likes of Canada, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, and are similarly welcomed with open arms by Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba. In light of Qatar’s recent admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, despite pushback from pro-Israeli Republicans over the gas-rich statelet’s harboring of Hamas’s politburo, Abu Dhabi will almost certainly fancy its chances of following suit and making the cut under a Trump 2.0 administration.

Whether or not this comes to pass, the UAE’s highly selective approach towards naturalization means is is the complete antithesis of a self-sufficient nation. It relies exclusively on non-citizens—who constitute around 90% of the overall population—to build its imposing skyscrapers, fight its proxy wars, keep its economy afloat and even clinch medals at the Olympics. The sheikhdom’s retrograde, “kafala-inspired” labor laws, binding residents to their employer or Emirati sponsor, have resulted in scores of skilled and enterprising expatriates leaving once their professional tenures end. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization has now resorted to anchoring foreign talent by offering doctors, artists, engineers, scientists and other specialists 10-year “Golden Visas.” In some extreme cases, high-profile figures with deep pockets like Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary and the Telegram founder Pavel Durov have even been accorded citizenship on the basis of nomination. 

Besides being something of a gut-punch to expats of more modest means, who spend decades toiling away in the UAE yet are overlooked for long-term residency let alone nationality, the materialistic view taken by Emirati officials when deciding who is worthy of a sense of belonging in their country has cast a spotlight on deep-seated sectarian prejudices and neglected communities such as the Bidoon. Much like the Roma gypsies in Central and Eastern Europe, this indigenous group remains an invisible underclass consigned to the fringes of society as a result of lacking proper documentation. Perpetual statelessness has immiserated them to the extent that they cannot enroll in public education, open a bank account, apply for a driver’s license, or receive medical treatment. Instead of remedying this situation by providing the Bidoons with a clear-cut and overdue pathway to citizenship, the UAE government struck an agreement with the Comoros Islands—one of Africa’s poorest states—to naturalize them in bulk. Doing so ensured they were not a financial burden to Abu Dhabi and could be summarily expelled if ever push came to shove.

Meanwhile, Emiratis of Persian descent—pejoratively referred to as “Ajamis”—bore the brunt of the Al Nahyan dynasty’s post–Arab Spring paranoia. They have historically had to settle for second-tier or “half-baked” citizenship as a result of being ineligible for a “family book” or khulasat al-qaid  that traces recipients’ lineage to tribes from what were then the “Trucical States.” The positions of Dubai and Abu Dhabi vis-à-vis Ajamis and Iran writ large are diametrically opposed. The UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (MbR) famously broke with tradition and appointed Iranian-Emirati career diplomats like Anwar Gargash and Mohammed al-Gergawi to his cabinet upon becoming ruler of Dubai in 2006. MbR has also adopted an opportunistic, pay-to-play policy towards Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) functionaries and frontmen who use Dubai as a sanctions circumvention hub and their personal playground. As per a 2024 OCCRP report, more than 7,000 Iranians owned properties in the glitzy city-state worth $7 billion. 

The Emirati president and former Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahayan (MbZ), on the other hand, was increasingly apprehensive about the Ajamis having split allegiances and instilled a climate of fear during the Arab Spring such that even speaking Farsi in public places became taboo. Emirati-Iranians were systematically denied passport renewals on Abu Dhabi’s orders and closely surveilled by the State Security Apparatus as IRGC sleeper cells mushroomed across the Arabian Peninsula. By the same token, those from the underdeveloped “Northern Emirates” like Sharjah, Ajman, and Ras Al-Khaimah are looked down on as fifth-columnists and considered more prone to radicalization. The lion’s share of UAE94 activists—including Sheikh Sultan bin Kayed al-Qassimi, Ahmed Mansour, Khaled al-Nuaimi and Salem al-Shehi—hailed from these peripheral towns, as did most Emirati soldiers enlisted in the genocidal, decade-long Yemen war.

The lopsided relationship between GCC governments and their citizenry, where the former bankrolls the latter as opposed to vice-versa, is among the reasons why those in power feel no real obligation to create a marketplace of ideas or transition towards a more inclusive and participatory form of governance. In many ways, the U.S.-led “war on terror” was a blessing in disguise for Khaleeji monarchs, not least since it gift-wrapped them a pretext to run roughshod over “problematic” citizens and stamp out independent thinking under the guise of combating “Political Islam.” Conflating activism with extremism is still par for the course in the UAE and often leads to enforced disappearances of those deemed a threat to public order or national security. Unsavory and barbarous as the House of Saud may be, there is no denying the conservative kingdom’s outsized geostrategic importance; the birthplace of Islam also has roughly one-fifth of the world’s proven crude oil reserves. The UAE, comparatively speaking, is small fry and not nearly so influential a player on the international arena as they make themselves out to be in their profuse PR campaigns.

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